HELP! Cabbage root fly problem

Dwrgi

Hi, 
I noticed 2 days ago that my kale was very sickly looking, i pulled it up and there were litte white wrigglers on the root. 
I checked my other kale (looked fine) but when i pulled gently on them, they all came up easily and had little wrigglers.
My turnips were the same (although looked fine before pulling). 

I've pulled up most of my brassica plants and binned them. Did I do right? 

I do have sprouts in the bed that were planted last week, should i move them? They look fine and the is a sizeable gap between. 

Any other tips? Or what can i plant there, i only have one veg bed so ideally don't want a bare area unplanted. 

How long should I wait before planting cabbages again? 

Im a beginner (first year growing veg in beds) so any tips and advice would be wonderful. 

nick615

In the absence of any other gems of wisdom, and because my idea won't touch the actual foliage that you eat, I think I'd make up a fairly dilute solution of Jeyes Fluid (and water) and see what effect it would have on a small sample of the roots/soil/wrigglies.  If it nukes the wrigglies, I'd dib a deepish hole close to each plant and fill it with the solution - maybe more than one hole per plant.  If the kale recovers, maybe job done.  If not, re-do the lot.

Palustris

Recent transplants can be given some protection by placing a brassica collar around the base of the stem. These can be purchased from garden centres or they can be made from circles or squares, about 8-15cm (3¼-6in) across, using carpet underlay, roofing felt, cardboard or similar materials. The collar prevents the female fly placing eggs on the soil surface close to a host plant. Eggs deposited on the collar often dry up and fail to hatch.

There are nematode species (Fruit and Vegetable Protection) is sold as a biological pest control for use against cabbage root fly larva.

No insecticides for amateur use.

I would not put Jeyes Fluid anywhere near any plants, it is rather bad for most things.

JennyJ

For this year, you could use the area for some reasonably quick-growing non-brassica crops - lettuce, spring onions, carrots to pull as baby carrots - and if there's space you could maybe buy some plants of bush tomatoes.