I cover mine with summer insect barrier.

Dan

The first line of defense, for an organic gardener/farmer, is the soil. Plants grown in a good, healthy soil that is well endowed with organic matter and is evenly moist but well drained are less likely to attract insect pests. Intercropping, trap cropping, covering the plants with Floating Row covers are all other options that cna be used.
The link below to an ATTRA publication may be of some help.

Here is a link that might be useful: About Flea Beetle control

Thus strikes the spam bot.

My soil is wonderful and if I don't cover I'll get flea beetles. Surely I'd get more if the plants were unhealthy, but come now.

Dan

Like Dan, I have great soil ... but if I didn't do something about the flea beetles on the eggplant, they would leave only lace for the colorado potato beetles to finish off within a month of setting the plants out.

I put the plants in, mulch heavily, dust with diatomaceous earth and then immediately cover with light weight row cover. I pull the cover back to dust them again with DE if it's rained and I see FB and or slug damage despite the row cover.

IMO, it is very difficult to grow eggplants organically WITHOUT floating row cover. You get the additional benefit of a few degrees higher temp in spring/early summer for what are truly heat loving plants.

I was a determined organic gardner...until i tried to grow eggplant...last year it looked like a shotgun war erupted on them..this year its starting earlier..and my soil is great. I did everything..planting Daikon..insecticidal soap, sprinkled lime u name it. I broke down and dusted with Sevin and the awful critters are finally gone...all that is left is my guilt and the remains of my eggplants :0)

I spray mine with water about once a week. I have paisley growing at the base. It's growing at the dryer vent. Going on the second year with two plants. A few spider mites, no flea beetles that I know of.
Perhaps beginners luck?

I dunno if this is just my luck, but I grow a dozen or so egg plants and don't have much problem with flea beetles. About 10 feet a way I have 5 or 6 buddleia that get demolished by the little critters.

I dust mine with DE about once a week or after rain or watering. Works like a charm but you have to be diligent.

David, you have a ready-made trap crop!

Dan

I was just having this problem, looked it up and learned that sprinkling coffee grounds around the base of the eggplant will deter them and guess what... it DID!!! No more flea beetles!

Interesting Catepelose. Because, my eggplant is outside my backdoor and gets a good dose of UCGs. Wonder if that's what's keeping them down?
I also mulched last year with fresh pine shavings. I know it binds up the nitrogen but it keeps the soil so cool in the summer. Wonder if pine shavings are also repellent? I haven't added any this year because I just ordered a chipper and am waiting for it to show up.
I now have mountains of packing paper to shred from the house being moved back into. The movers must have gotten paid by the box as there are 558 boxes, mostly only 1/4 full. I mean I have mountains of paper!! Bigger pile than my old gardening shed, literally.
If the pine shavings helped, wonder if cedar shavings would be even better? Both are pretty cheap at the feed store where I live.

What about squishing them? That is what i've been doing on my 6 eggplant plants. I spray them daily in this hot wx, but also check the leaves. They are easy to spot and not fast enough for me. I'm an awesome bug killer (i squish Rose Chafers/Japanese beetles/plum curculios with my fingers and listen to them crunch like potato chips). They may get away from a rookie, but a trained killer like myself, with lightning bolt reflexes and the agility of an olympic athlete..its just child's play.

tracydr, I have no idea why it works.. I was so desperate a few days ago I would have done anything to get rid of them, so when I read coffee would do the trick I dashed out there, grounds in hand.

One caveat however, I noticed that when I tried to mix the coffee grounds into the soil around the base of the plant a few plants had flea beetles on them the next day. So try to use a pretty good amount of coffee on the soil surface and don't mix it in. Another thing that seems to have helped is after I sprayed some insecticidal soap (homemade) that had a tablespoon or 2 veg. oil in it (to help it adhere to the leaves) and then sprinkled the coffee grounds over the plant it seems as though the coffee on the leaves was beneficial. If you don't have or feel like making insecticidal soap I would assume you could just lightly spray the tops (only the tops) with veg. oil and then sprinkle coffee grounds over the plant for the same effect. If there was excess i just lightly tapped/shook the plant to get it off. Oh... and although I did mention that I used insecticidal soap, I know that is not what did the trick... I used this first and the next day they were back.

I'd still love to hear of other ways to get rid of them without using my precious grounds! (Can't use DE, we have ducks that patrol the garden jungle)

I can picture the volatiles coming off the grounds smelling bad and keeping some critters away. Not for long, though, surely.

Dan

Did anyone else have luck using the coffee grounds...I will not repeat the seven dusting...its just to detrimental to everything else around the area...I made some insecticidal soap with Bonners peppermint and canola oil and water and am using that for now..along with just picking the darned things off and squishing them, but one does have to work.

Pinkcat,

I know the feeling about using sevin. don't get me wrong, but if you have to use sevin, liquid is better. You must throw the DUST container out. It is really toxic to bees! our local extension and bee Keepers are always trying to educate people to avoid the DUST. Liquid is a little better...

Anyway I had bought this product online called PYOLA from garden's alive which is organic(basically pyrethrin mixed in canola oil) which seems to work on the flea beetles. It says broad sprectrum, so I am hoping it will work on CUcumber beetles, bean beetles and all kinds of caterpillar and moths! So lets see how that goes.
But for now the flea beetles have gone down. But we have to keep spraying after each rainfall. I don't mind that at all as long as it keeps the bugs under control. Also it says on the bottle that one can use it upto the day of harvest and on the whole 10 applications in the entire growing season. This is not bad compared to SEVIN or Malathion which have only 2-3 application in the entire growing season and you have to wait for a few days before you harvest your vegetables!

I have heard that interplanting with pennyroyal is effective, and wondered if anyone has tried it. I use lightweight tulle netting as summer row covers or I would never get an eggplant. Tomatillos seem to be easy prey, too, so they also grow under cover.

Here is a link that might be useful: pic of pink tulle on eggplant

I am a committed organic gardener but I would not have eggplant growing in my garden without using seven. You can stop using it once the plants reach maturity, they seem to produce eggplant just fine at that point. I live in the country and was visiting a friend in the city. Around the corner was a garden full of beautiful eggplant. I asked the owner if she used some insecticide since I saw no evidence of flea beetle damage. She didn't know what I was talking about. Maybe flea beetles are not as prevalant is highly populated and high automobile traffic areas.

It's Sevin -- not seven -- which is the most common commercial name for the pesticide carbaryl.

Sevin is in no way shape or form organic -- in fact, it's absolutely one of the worst broad spectrum pesticides available to home gardeners. No question it's effective on flea beetles but it is definitely a nuclear option. A broad spectrum organic 'cide like neem might be a more environmentally friendly option in a spray bottle. But, why spray at all?

Seriously, row cover works. The two biggests pests of eggplants are flea beetles and colorado potato beetles. Both tend to be fairly early season problems. If you keep the eggplants covered for the first month or so, you will get them past the worst of the infestation and big enough to be able to fend for themselves. I don't keep them covered all summer.

What mary said. Both my potatoes and egglplant are covered with summer insect barrier to repel CPB and flea beetles. This is all I do. Nothing more.

Dan

I tried neem oil, worked a little. Then tried pyr-rot spray,worked a little. By this time I was getting scared, they were goin to town, so I broke out the carbyl. Hated to but was running out of time. I may try that coffee grind thing. Probabaly just reinforce my organics with spinosad, piola, etc. but until I get the money and its the plants or the bugs I will use carbaryl but only for spot treatment and only when its bad. Carabyl is very bad for benefitials. If you have the money, I read that spinosad controls some beetles, I'm trying that next.

Carabyl is very bad for benefitials.

Spinosad is bad for bees as well; do it before flowering.

Dan

I sprayed my eggplants with a DE Slurry. It dried up on the leaves coating them entirely with a complete dusting of DE, top and bottom, stems and all.
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...
the flea beetles are walking around building little DE snowmen like they got a free day out of school for snow. No effect, and I'm an advocate of DE for pest control, but the Flea Beetles are stronger than DE it seems.

Floating row covers do the job, until the plants are strong enough to look after themselves. Eggplant is a famous magnet for flea beetles, so don't wait till they appear., Regards, Peter.