After my post I went out and looked at the bale of straw, just covered with the beasts. I'm guessing they were in the cool interior and I opened Pandora's box. The whole thing went in the city yard debris for compost. My pile will never kill them. Interestingly, last year I grew tomatoes in a straw bale with reasonable success and never had a flea beetle problem. Go figure! Time will determine how bad they get. Now if I could just get my carrots going. Pat

but they are wreaking serious havoc on my eggplants (all the leaves are covered in tiny holes). ==>>> tiny holes and serious damage.. dont quite equate in my book ... they may not look pretty ... but are the leaves failing???? .. are they skeletonized???? could we see a pic ... we have to start with ruling out some cosmetic damage.. as compared to damage that effects the plant ... at least i would ... i dont get to overly concerned.. by august.. that plants get tired.. or i should say.. 'look' tired ... or have cosmetic damage ... ken

<Do eggplants need to be hand pollinated under cover? I thought they are self-pollinating, like peppers...> Have to? No just as you don't have to uncover them when they bloom for pollination. But it makes big difference in production just as it does with all other members of the family. They are also shielded from the wind when under cover and wind plays a role in pollination of eggplants, tomatoes, and peppers.

If no one else has, try it and let us know. I have potatoes close to my arugula, and the flea beetles are so happy, they don't know the arugula is even there. The potatoes are vigorous enough to handle the flea beetle assault with ease. I do need to get some sticky traps to hang near the potatoes just to keep the flea beetle numbers down.