Eggplant flea beetle coffee treatment update

It's been a little over a week since treating the eggplants with coffee to combat the flea beetle. There was never too many flea beetles (or I didn't spot them) but the damage to the leaves was pretty extensive. The coffee treatment seems to have gotten rid of beetles, after a couple of days of treatment I was only able to spot one beetle on the classic eggplant.  A couple of days after that, I found no beetle but the plants (classic and black beauty) was covered with ants.

This picture does not do it justice, there was even more ants on the plant

The first thing I did was sprayed the plant with water which washed away the ants. I noticed that there were little holes on the stem where it looked like the ants were digging. After doing a little searching, it appears that ants are secondary problem to flea beetles. If the beetles do enough damage to the plants, the ants come to feast on the dead tissue. To me, it looked like the ants were digging further, but perhaps the flea beetle dug the holes and the ants came after. I decided to just keep an eye on it. The black beauty plant, which was the bigger of the two, seemed to have recovered despite the damage.

You can see the flea beetle damage on the lower leaves (Black Beauty eggplant)

I don't think the classic eggplant will make it. The flea beetle and/or ants pretty much ate through the stem and the new growth looked like it was struggling. I decided to try cutting off the damage to see if it will promote more growth. I am not optimistic.

Chopped off the damage from the classic eggplant

The ichiban eggplant is doing great. I even see little baby eggplants forming already.

Ichiban eggplant lookin' good

Baby ichiban eggplant

The container ichiban is also doing really well, with lots of flowers and a baby eggplant forming quite nicely. It'll be interesting to compare the growth of this variety in ground versus container.

Ichiban in 5 gallon container

Baby ichiban growing in container

In the future, I think I will wait until the starter plants are big enough before transplanting to the garden. Also, I read that flea beetles are a problem mostly in April and May so I could also hold off transplanting into the garden until June.  I do think the coffee treatment worked, but it's difficult to say definitively because I didn't have a control group and it's possible that the decline in flea beetle just coincided with the end of their life cycle. I chose to be positive and believe that the coffee treatment worked!

It's on! Me vs flea beetle & caterpillar

I am starting to realize that in-ground gardening is much more challenging than container gardening. I knew there will be more issues just based on the greater number of vegetable plants I have in the community plot. Beyond the greater number, the in-ground garden is more accessible to insects and other garden pests (but also to beneficial creatures as well). My container garden has the added benefit of being on a balcony so not as many insects get to it.  So far, in the community garden, I've had the attack of rodents and/or birds on the tomato seedlings. The little make-shift cage is working and the tomatoes are now growing well. Something is also feasting on the swiss chard. The huge black poop on the leaves indicate that it is some sort of caterpillar. I usually go to the garden after work so the caterpillars are probably hiding in the soil. I will catch them in the act one of these days!

All you can eat swiss chard for the caterpillars

I also noticed something is attacking one of my eggplants. I am growing 3 types of eggplants: black beauty, classic italian (not sure of exact name) and ichiban. The flea beetle decided to attack the classic italian, maybe because it is the smallest plant. I read that flea beetles are one of the main pests of eggplants and they are usually a problem early in the season particularly following a mild winter.  This describes the current condition perfectly. I'm not sure how to gauge how bad the damage is, but I feel like the plant will be OK. Here is how the leaves looked:

Classic sign of flea beetle damage

A little blurry, but you can see the discoloration and holes in the leaves

My plan of attack is to manually remove the fleas (there aren't too many yet, I only spotted like 4-5 tiny fleas) and to use caffeine (coffee). The other organic control method I read is neem oil - but I don't have this, so for now I'm going with coffee. I marched to the garden with a bottle of cooled coffee (extra strong) and a container of fresh coffee grinds in hand. I sprinkled the coffee grinds around the base of the eggplant and sprayed the leaves with coffee, making my garden smell like a cafe. I will post updates on how this goes.

Coffee sprayed on leaves and coffee grind at the base of the eggplant

It is not all bad in the garden. Some plants are thriving...like the curly kale and collard greens. The kale is definitely doing much better in-ground than in the container. This might be because it has much more space in the community garden. I should thin out the kale in my containers. I hate thinning out plants...

Happy kale