I am fascinated by insects, and they are part of what I love about gardening. I feel a garden should attract visitors of many kinds. Frankly though, there is nothing more disgusting than worms eating holes in carrots, beets, turnips and other root crops. I can think of no other vegetable pest that causes such strong shivers to run up and down my spine. So here are some tips to help you - organically of course...
A Few Examples of Root-eating insects... Carrot rust flies inhabit carrots and other Umbelliferous plants, and make their roots pretty much inedible, unless of course you don't mind eating larvae. They are quite soft bodied, and dirty blonde.
Wire Worms are hard-shelled, have several small legs and are hard to squish. The tubers of potato plants and turnips are greatly affected, where wireworms will riddle the tubers with their tunnels. The larvae take a few years to develop into a click beetle.
Cabbage root maggots are small (half a centimetre long) and white. They normally bore straight into the root, rather than hanging around near the outside where the flesh of the root is harder. They attack cabbage and anything in the cabbage family. That includes radish, turnip, kohl rabi, and arugula. The maggot develops into a fly, dark gray with black stripes on the thorax.
Knowing exactly which type of larvae you have is not terribly important. All can be treated using the following methods.
Root-feeding larvae are gross, but they can also be kind of interesting as well.
They are the larvae of flies, beetles and moths. The full-grown insects lay eggs in the soil, near your crops. Next, the eggs hatch, and out of each one comes a larvae. These crawl over to your crops and start eating the roots. Once they are large and fat, they pupate for a time, depending on which kind of bug it is, and then emerge as a full-grown adult, starting the cycle over again.
In many garden stores, garden publications, and often on gardening forums online, people will tell you to drench the soil around your plants with a pesticide, to kill the worms. I find that idea morally repugnant. If there are already worms in your carrots, in most cases, gardeners will probably find them unappetizing if they are saved anyway.
