Broad beans, radish, lettuce, leeks, beetroot seedlings all fail. rhubarb leaves have holes. Have seen flea beetles. Is this the likely cause and what would be a cure?
Seedling failure could i be flea beetle?
- Thread starter Clarachite
- Start date
Flea beetle damage looks like you shot the leaves with rat shot (a shotgun with fine pellets). Dish soap solution will kill flea beetles. Really it sounds like you have other problems than flea beetles.
Many thanks for your prompt and helpful reply. I changed my visit to the veg garden tonight, at 7 pm. I found at least 24 small brown slugs on my potatoes and three more on my onions. So, your advice was spot on.
I've never really had slug problems although they are around. They need a place to hide in the daytime so keeping your garden free of debris probably helps. I believe you can lay a board down and they will crawl under it and during the daytime pick up the board and dispose of the slugs. There is also a beer trap which I've never used.
In England we have lots and lots of problems with slugs and snails. The little ones are the worst - they are best at finding hiding places. When I ran my small growing nursery here, you could hear me at night. I would visit all my greenhouses with a pot of salt and armed with a torch would pick off all the slimy sods and yell ''take that you bustard'' or something like that, and pop them into the salt.
In Wales, especially west Wales, where @Clarachite comes from, they say it never stops raining - so the slugs are happiest there. Just think, I could pack all my critters up and send them over there for a holiday instead of putting them in the salt pot
In Wales, especially west Wales, where @Clarachite comes from, they say it never stops raining - so the slugs are happiest there. Just think, I could pack all my critters up and send them over there for a holiday instead of putting them in the salt pot