Completely Decimated

Sorry to read you've had a disaster. The only real way of keeping out the pests is to net your veg. Something with tiny holes like veggiemesh will keep out pretty much everything, and small holed butterfly net (7mm or smaller) will keep out the butterflies. If the leaves touch the mesh or the net the butterflies can lay eggs through the holes, so it's worth keeping an eye out.

On the plus side, the net should last years. Your local DIY stores or garden centres might have some leeks or brassicas for planting out and harvesting next year. Mine certainly do.

Hope that helps. 

Definitely close hole netting but also check the plants for butterfly eggs when you plant them out. They're usually small, green, round eggs in a little cluster under the leaf. Squish them and you'll most likely be caterpillar free.

Cammi - rotating some crops is because specific diseases can build up in the soil that affect the following years' crops. There is plenty of advice on here about how to do it, though recently I've learnt that you don't need to rotate peas and beans, just pots, roots and brassicas. I just label my beds A,B,C,D on a piece of paper then move what I grew in A to plot B (etc) the next year.

You could get debris netting instead of enviromesh - an awful lot cheaper!

It'll be fine if you plant the same crop in the same ground to replace the ones that have been eaten. Rotation is important but probably more important not to grow the same crops (that is crops that need rotated like brassicas) year after year unless you use lots of fertilisers and pesticides. It's good practice to rotate but you'll probably get away with not rotating perfectly every time.

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I know the feeling, but keep trying!

A different approach might work next year, forget what you tried and were a disaster this time!

Forget brassicas  with the exception of Kohl Rabi the white beasties can smell them for miles!

Try potatoes,peas, dwarf and climbing beans, runner beans, broad beans, parsnips, beetroot, leeks and lettuce.

nothing makes you smile like success.

Best of luck!

Thanks folks, went to garden center today and they had some tiny little cabbages, psb, etc so will buy some of those, but they are the size my seedlings were when I planted them out, so god knows if they will have time to grow before winter sets in. 

Sounds very late for PSB plants to me ... my Garden Centre sells all sorts of things that are far too late to be planted out (and they have rows and rows of Rhododendrons, and no suitable acid-soil within driving distance from here ...).  Personally I don't grow over winter cabbage either (and I wouldn't be sure that is what your garden centre is selling as plug plants, unless they are labelled as such)

If you are using Square Foot method I presume your raised beds are "tiny"?  if so I think that Brassicas may be a luxury - they need 2' or 2'6" per plant, and they don't yield a great deal, and are in the ground from Spring until well into Winter - not to mention the caterpillar and pigeon issues!.  I suggest only planting Brassicas if that is what you particular like to eat

For a Newbie I would suggest sticking to High Value, Best Flavour (which might be low-ish yielding) varieties, and only growing what you like to eat.  Things like Runner Beans  and Courgettes are relatively expensive in the shops because of the manual labour to pick them, but they crop heavily and thus represent a good value crop.  Main Crop Potatoes, for example, are very cheap in the shops, farmers can store them well into the Winter in their cold stores which stops them sprouting - you or I would have trouble with that! - and main crop spuds are also very prone to late blight, so I would avoid growing them.  New Potatoes OTOH are expensive in the shops, and will taste better picked and immediately cooked (something about the sugar turning to starch from the moment they are picked), plus you can grow the exact variety/s that you & your family like, and which suit your soil.

I hate it when newbies have crop failure, or find the task of growing-their-own arduous, because it is so disheartening and likely to put them off - just as you have described. I have been doing it for years, and crop failure is now rare for me, but I have so much in my vegetable patch that total failure of one thing does't prevent the Galley from churning out great meals   Still annoys me intently though ...

money is rather tight

The Garden Centre Group is currently selling off seed packets at 50p each, dunno if there is one near you (or if they will have much left) but might save a few pennies for next year. This forum has a Seed Parcel most years, might be worth looking out for that too

www.thegardencentregroup.co.uk/garden-centres/find

Do people still use pesticides on such things these days??

I don't put any chemicals on my crop, ever ... except that I would if I was at risk of losing the whole crop.  We grow firstly for flavour (I don't care if the variety I like the taste of is low yielding, or prone to disease, or fussy about something, we want our veg to taste First Rate ), and secondly for the provenance that at least for the food we grow ourselves there is nothing added; in my lifetime there have been so many chemicals which have started out with news headlines that they are the panacea, and then years later are found to be toxic / have side effects / are withdrawn ... I just feel happier not eating chemical-added grub whenever possible.

For some bugs a spray with water plus detergent is effective, most people would be happy using that - but it won't help you with caterpillars . Chemical pesticides are systemic - they are retained by the plant and kill bugs that then eat them - but soap is a contact-only solution, so you have to keep spraying regularly, and get over-and-under the leaves, so it is harder work than a chemical pesticide

I net my brassicas (and several other things that the Pigeons like) with Scaffolders Debris Netting. It is often thrown away after a job, so if you see some on a building site near you worth asking if you can blag it when the scaffolding comes down - builders have to pay "muck away" to have skips/rubbish carted away, so you'll be saving them some money taking it off their hands - so don't be shy to ask! Some pictures on my blog showing my 9-year-old erecting it in my veg patch