Brassica Collars?

[SandraParticipant]

I mentioned a few weeks ago that not only do I have to lime my plot because our soil is so acid, but I also have to use brassica collars here to stop cabbage root fly. I have bought 180 of them this year so far and used the lot and I already had some from previous years which have been used as well.

I bought myself a perennial kale as well as a 9 star perennial broccoli. The went into their permanent beds – complete with brassica collars as well as limed soil – and have grown beautifully. This morning my kale was drooping, I thought it might want some water. I never thought of cabbage root fly, probably because I knew that I had done my best against that. An hour later and the kale was looking the same. I gave a tug on a leaf and the whole thing came up with no problem at all, with little white maggots where I would have expected to see roots. The whole thing went into a bucket of water and I also dug up the 9 star broccoli in the same bed. That did have roots, but it also had tiny maggots too so I washed the roots on that as well. I had put collars on them both, and they were also under enviromesh. If I want to grow perennials like these, how am I going to protect them? I would have to make some sort of a large and more or less permanent collar wouldn’t I????? I have suffered the same thing before here but I thought I knew how to protect my brassicas. Any ideas I would be very happy to take on board. I have potted up the broccoli and cut the kale down to a cutting and put them both in a shaded and double netted area to hopefully recover and or for the cutting to even more hopefully take. I am heart broken. I have spent an hour now cutting up heavy compost/ feed bags to use as collars. I have just planted a purple collard, as well as a different kale and I am going to have to go and root around in their root systems next, or I will not slepp tonight.

Sorry it is a long post.

[charlesModerator]

Wow this is bad news Sandra, not sure what to say except it’s been a bad year for cabbage root fly. Normally they are not a major issue here but this spring they are! I lose a few plants but if it was as bad as at yours I would have to cover with mesh from day one at planting.

[BrieParticipant]

I’ve read that cabbage root fly will over winter in the ground and therefore if you cover your plants with mesh too early in the season, you will actually trap them inside to feast on your brassicas 🙁

[SandraParticipant]

Yes Charles, the little beggars are driving me mad. I checked my purple tree collard as well as another kale whose name escapes me and they were ok, no signs of maggots, but whether they will forgive me for the cold bath they got remains to be seen. Do the horrors really only eat brassica roots? Must look online for more info on the darned things.

Brie, I haven’t had a veg garden for about 3 years now, because my husband was diagnosed with heart failure in April that year (2015) and I just couldn’t spare the time for the garden. I gave all of my veg seedlings/young plants to my neighbour so there have been no brassicas grown on my plot for at least that long. And that particular bed had never had brassicas grown there anyway. So I would think it unlikely that any CRFly over wintered here, but they came from somewhere. There are no neighbours nearer than 1/4 of a mile from here and he doesn’t grow veg anyway, so I have no idea where they came from. We live 1,000 ft up on the southern side of a mountain in North Wales, so how they found my brassicas the first time I don’t know, but they came back again obviously.

[SandraParticipant]

Well, another bad day here. I took the nets off my main brassica bed and the little so and so’s have been munching on more of my plants. There is a range of kale/cabbage/romanesco in that bed and most of my Marathon calabrese had no roots and now are making compost instead.

I have left the nets off tonight, there didn’t seem to be much point in putting them back on. I am debating whether to take the remaining plants out tomorrow and wash the roots clean in order to see if there are any maggots in them. Couldn’t make my mind up today though. Worth a try I suppose.

[EsterParticipant]

In DK the cabbage root fly is a pest aswell. When I plant any cabbage I always put a thick layer of grass clipping tight around the roots, in fact I cover the whole bed, with 8-10 cm of grass clipping. I water it down and make sure that it is tight and firm around the roots. The cabage root fly can not get to root.
It is working for me- I do not grow a large numbers of plants- it is not big deal to cover them.
The grass clipping also keep moisture and feed the cabbage-
The only problem with grass clipping is birds turning it to look for insects and earthworms, but a net will solve that.
😊

[Author]

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