[julietmaria]

I have some round holes on quite a few leaves of my sprouts and broccoli and looked in my book and think it might be flea beetle.  The book says it is a serious problem in April & May and that I should spray with derris solution.  But I want to be organic.  ANy help on how to deal with it and what to do greatly appreciated.  Plus how bad is derris and if I used it would our family be eating it on our veg?  Thanks in advance, Juliet

[gobs]

You can plant some sacrificial radish or mustard around them or fleece, or shake off onto greased paper, but they not often get serious on large brassica plants.

[hotterotter]

Derris is organic, its made from the roots of some jungle vine thingy. I presume you'll not be eating the brassicas in question for a while so no risk to you. It's really bad for fish and all aquatic ecology and I think kills ladybirds and their larvae so only use it carefully on a day when the weather's right (nice and sunny) to get max effect for minimum poisoning of predators.

[noshed]

Enviromesh is good for keep them off

[gobs]

I wouldn't recommend using derris for anything, for the mentioned reasons, organic or not, you'll probably find a lot of new selective insecticides a lot less harmful to wild life.

Any non-selective products should not really be used, as we already have a problem with declining bee populations.

I'm unsure though if you need to do anything at all. What are these plants, how big and what is the damage?