Country Lore: Stomping Out the Cabbage Maggot

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PHOTO: L. BOUVIER/FOTOLIA
Most of your cole plants will grow a robust maturity if you protect them from cabbage maggots early on.

If you garden in Canada or the northern half of the United States, you probably have another spring pest of cabbage and broccoli to contend with: the cabbage maggot.

This fly lays its eggs on the soil near young transplants; when the larvae hatch, they crawl down into the soil and feed on the transplants’ roots, weakening and even killing the plants. The aboveground symptom is wilting, which may appear to be caused by lack of water.

Arthur Dear, a reader from Thorsby, Alberta, has developed an innovative technique to prevent this damage. Basically, he sets seedlings into the ground deeply, at a 45-degree angle, so that just the leaves are above ground. Then he steps on the plant with his full weight, rolling his foot from just before the roots over the buried stem and across the partially protruding leaves. Stepping on the transplants compresses the soil around the stem, making it impossible for the cabbage maggots to crawl down along the stem to the roots.

  • Published on Dec 23, 2008
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