Just bought a house, First Garden, Something is eating my Broccoli Roots!!

Question

Hello! First time gardener here. Since we bought our house, we can actually do what we want with the yard. 😀

At any rate i’m trying a garden for the first time, and it turns out I really love it. Started these Broccoli from seed and transplanted to an amended bed of garden soil and cow manure compost from Home Depot. The natural soil here is very heavy and clay like. I removed a good 12-18 inches of that and mixed in the new soil before transplanting.

Everything was going great until i noticed first one then two broccoli drooping severely during the midday. Watering seemed to make it worse.

Thought too much Sun at first, then I saw a ton of little black-red ants swarming the base of the plants. So I thought maybe they were stripping the roots. Then I yanked 2 of my 10 plants up and found i’m not sure what.

Researching online is suggestion some kind of root maggots.
Or the ants are eating the roots and stems like that.

HELP!! i still have 8 plants that are doing ok to various degrees, I’d like to treat this problem before I lose my entire first crop. 🙁

Answer 1

Too much water and not enough sand for drainage is leaving the roots too wet. Water on a drip line if you can or water slow and deep every third day. Too much moisture and not enough drainage will attract grubs, ants, And beetles