Would't worry about it. If they hitchhiked in with the mulch then they are decomposers of rotting organic matter. More than likely they will die off/move away on their own in due time. Almost certainly not interested in your plants.

Those reading this thread grow plants in media that range from sticky, extremely water retentive, and low in oxygen when they are saturated, to media that remain friable (uncompacted), highly oxygenated, and hold NO perched water when they are completely saturated. We cannot simply blame poor plant performance on watering habits, as I illustrated upthread. Neither, can we consider plant/water relationships without considering the media. When we blame poor plant performance on over-watering, what are we saying? On one hand, we might be saying that we are applying too much water to the soil, but is that really accurate? I don't think so. I think it's much more accurate to say the soil is holding too much water. Doesn't this then, shift the responsibility for root rot issues and poor plant performance to the media instead of the hand controlling the water can? The argument might be raised that all you need to do is water less - problem solved .....right? Not so fast. What happens when we water less, in small sips? Salts accumulate in soils from the fertilizers we apply and, as this happens, plants have increasing difficulty absorbing water and the nutrients dissolved in water from the soil. This is stress, and it assuredly affects the plants vitality and diminishes potential growth. Yes, you are able to work around this issue of accumulating salts by eliminating them from the soil with thorough flushing - frequently, but that is a time consuming process and several extra steps. Since the reason you need to flush the soil is because it is too water retentive in the first place, flushing it places the plant at risk for root rot - unless you take still additional steps to make sure that doesn't occur - like depotting the plant and placing it on newspaper over night so the water saturating the soil can be wicked into the newspaper and evaporate. So it sounds good to say it's a watering issue, and not a soil issue, but we can clearly see that it is not a watering issue. Lets look at the other end of the soil range for a moment. Consider a soil with particles that are large enough that the soil holds no water between soil pores. The descriptive terminology would be that it 'holds no perched water'. You can water this soil every hour of every day, yet it holds no water between it's particles. It does. however, hold plenty of water INSIDE the particles - water plants can easily access as they need it. As the plants access this water, their roots are totally surrounded by plenty of air - even immediately after you water to saturation. Even if you water again 10 minutes later, all the water drains from the pores between particles and air returns to the entire volume of soil. How do we need to treat plants in the heavy soil? We need to water them carefully, because if we over-water the soil remains saturated, anaerobic (airless) conditions prevail, and root function/metabolism suffers, the plant is stressed and grows with reduced vitality. While, and because we are watering in small amounts to prevent soil saturation, salts are accumulating and additionally stressing plants. This occurs in every planting you cannot water properly because the medium is too water-retentive. How do we treat plants in the porous soil? We water them until about 10-15% of the water we applied comes out the drain and move on to the next plant - no worries - repeat in a few days. From what I offered, it's easy to see that soils and watering are inextricably related, and that it is actually the SOIL that dictates how you are able to water. Roots die when subjected to saturated (anaerobic) conditions. They don't all die at the same time; they die incrementally with the finest of roots - the workhorses - dieing first, larger roots following finer roots as the length of exposure to anaerobic conditions increases. This process begins quickly, even if you can't see it, within hours of watering, and doesn't stop until the water in the soil is used up and air returns to the soil. At that point, the lost roots begin to regenerate. This is very stressful, and extremely expensive to the plant in terms of energy outlay. The energy the plant must put into root regeneration would have went to blooms, fruit, more leaves, branch extension, or an increase in biomass. It simply is bad for the growth process. These problems are entirely eliminated in soils at the other end of the spectrum, so 'no', we cannot so easily say that it is over-watering that causes these issues when in fact, they are directly related to soil choice. Heavy (water-retentive) soils are convenient and readily available everywhere, and there are the strategies I touched on to help you cope with the difficulties encountered when using them, but the price of convenience, as you see, is often measured in plant vitality. Al

I actually read an article about thrips today that I found on google. It said that they do bite and can cause itching once they have bitten. The article strongly recommended never taking fresh cut flowers to anyone in the hospital because you may unknowingly be bringing them thrips and causing them to itch a lot. You learn something everyday!!

Okay, the native soil at my garden is really poor (i.e. deficient in nutrients, no earthworms or microorganisms of any kind in it.....which just further proves my point that the soil is horrible). I have to constantly apply fertilizer to the plants in order for them to do well/not struggle. I will be tilling in horse manure at the end of the season to amend the soil, but I can't do that until the end of season unfortunately. A question about the tangle foot; I found something called tree tangle foot; will this work for flea beatles? I had a question about the sticky traps as well (i.e. using the tanglefoot with the cardboard). You said to place it near the plants....this may seem like a dumb question, but should I put the sticky traps in a straight row along both sides of the row where the eggplant is? Should I just place them all over the garden? How many would I need? My garden is roughly a 40' x 40'. Does the poor soil make the the veggies more prone to flea beatle infestations? I've not only had flea beatle infestations with eggplant, but also napa cabbage and pac choi as well; however the flea beatles always do the most damage with my eggplant (I had eggplant starter plants earlier in the season and the infestation was so bad that they killed my plants) I've read that you should plant trap crops, essentially acting as decoys from the plants you're trying to prevent the flea beatles from infesting. Does this trap cropping method work?