It looks like pepper shot? And the little brown bugs hop like fleas? Yeah, sounds like flea beetles. I've been spraying once a week with either Spinosad or Pyola (both organic) and that's been keeping them at bay. Otherwise they can eat a plant down to the ground within hours. I still have some leaf damage, but it doesn't seem to be bothering the plants.

I would need to see a pic to determine flea beetle damage. It's usually very distinctive.

If it is flea beetles it may or may not be a health problem, just depends on how many their are.

In my garden flea beetles are only a health problem early in the season with seedlings, larger plants can deal with them, but it all just depends.

i have had flea beetles all over my eggplants since spring, but the plants just keep producing and producing... guess i really can't complain, i just can't stand the way the leaves look.

I to have had flea beetles on my eggplant since planting almost 3 months ago and they are blooming and producing very well. Some of the leaves have pepper-shot holes in them but they not killed them. I have been sprinking a little sevin dust on the leaves and it has helped but not kept them away.

{{gwi:107097}}

is this flea beetle damage?

at least some of the damage appears to be characteristic of flea beetles. I would think that you would be seeing them, if not on the leaves, then around the base of the plant. Stir up the soil surface and you may see some hoping going on.

The absolute best solution for flea beetles is a mixture of Rotenone and Pyrethrins. I tried for years to battle them with Sevin powder, no success. I have only ever had a problem with them with eggplant - they may appear on other plants but the damage is nowhere near as bad.

I had to be out of town for an extended period recently and JUST BEFORE I LEFT, flea beetles appeared on my only eggplant (had a late start due to a move). I killed every one I could find by hand, but expected to come back and find the eggplant destroyed (that's been my experience in the past). Well, they're still there, but so are the eggplants.

For the first time in 30 years, it looks like I won over the flea beetles without having to resort to pesticides, LOL! I'm still going to get some Rotenone/Pyrethrum, because there are a lot of them and I'm thinking I've just been lucky so far.

Sojourner