Help! Losing battle!

When I planted the broccoli plants, they were strong and healthy. Then the flea beetles got to them. In the last month I've tried:

Safer 3 in 1
Ortho Bug B Gone
Garlic Powder
Red pepper flakes
Hot pepper wax

Nothing works! The poor little plants are nothing but skelatonized stumps, but the flea beetles are STILL attacking them. They seem to thrive on the poison I spray on them.

And I've wasted an entire packet of zucchini seeds trying to get one to grow. I have had about 6-8 pop up--

--and they're immediately chewed down to nubs or they disappear out of their hole completely. The same is happening to my lettuce. I've tried:

Offerings from my cat's litter pan
garlic powder
red pepper flakes
Hot pepper wax

Again, nothing works. I'm growing some fall crop seedlings in a peat pot "greenhouse" on my picnic table, with a brick on top to keep them safe, hopefully. But even if I grow some small plants that way, I'm afraid they'll just turn into someone else's supper once I get them into the ground.

My potato plants have gotten munched, but they're still there. Although out of the sixteen potatoes I planted, only two sprouted. I don't know why.

I'm a novice gardener. I obviously don't know what I'm doing. Can anyone help?

WHITE,
Maybe its time for the BIG GUNS, malathion/diazanon/etc.??

Best;
bluelytes

I wouldn't recommend putting cat or dog feces next to any veggies ;o)

They were in a plastic bag. (I'm not a complete idiot here.) My thought, and it was recommended, was that the scent of a predator might scare the varmint away. But so far nothing has.

And I don't really want to spray heavy poison on something that I'm going to put in my mouth. I'd rather not go down that road. I get enough chemicals from the food I get at the grocery store. Part of my aim in planting my own garden is to get food that's not only fresh but reasonably free of chemicals (although I did get a little desperate with the Bug B Gone, admittedly, but that was only once),

I have not tried Neem, Bt, or Shake-away. I think that's the name. Powdered fox scent, anyway.

I think it's predator's urine not feces that deters pests. And it doesn't deter insects, just things like deer, rabbits, etc. So I wouldn't expect it to do anything for the flea beetles, but if you have rabbits or something that are eating your seedlings it might help--I've heard conflicting reports on how well it works but it's worth a shot.

Well, I have the two problems, tiny varmints and big varmints. The big varmints chomp in big mouthfuls, the tiny ones bit by teensy bit. Same result eventually. I've ordered Neem and Shake-away. I'm gathering quite a shelf full of products here.

I also ordered a raised bed kit that I'm going to put at the opposite end of the yard and fill with garden soil and compost. With luck I can get it set up in time to plant for a fall harvest. It's 3' x 3'.

I love broccoli and zucchini. It would be really nice to get some this year.

I'm also going to try an experiment with some of these clear plastic take-out containers I have. Maybe they can serve as tiny greenhouses, and I can finally get some lettuce.

Try Pyola from Gardens Alive .. it's totally veggie safe. I use it in my greenhouse cause it won't eat the polycarbonate panels if they get sprayed on and it zaps mites & whitefly on the first go around.

http://www.gardensalive.com/product.asp?pn=8101

X

Thanks, Xera. I'll look that up.

The plants seem to be doing better (knock on wood). We've had a couple hard rains combined with cooler temperatures, and the seedlings seem a lot more comfortable with that.

One broccoli may not be totally dead. If I can get rid of the flea beetles once and for all, possibly some new growth will come up.

I have six potato plants above the soil line now. They really seem to love this wetter weather.

I went out there tonight to check on my plants with a flashlight. (I got home way late.) They seem to be fine, but I saw at least a dozen big, fat earthworms in my veggie patch, especially where the potato plants were planted. Earthworms are good, right? I seem to have a lot of them.

Yes earthworms are very very good, their poo feeds the soil and they aerate it.

X

Must be the wet weather. I cultivated fairly deeply when I dug the bed, and except for my added compost and garden soil, the patch was essentially dust, dust and sand. And I planted in there last only a week ago.