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I am planning to invest in some insect proof mesh, principally for my brassicas on my allotment. I have bird netting and a bit of butterfly netting and fleece for other crops, but after last summer’s experience, albeit on a brand new allotment starting in June with no water on site, I’d like some veg with my white fly this year! Do you think it is worth paying the premium for the very small 0.25mm x 0.8mm mesh or would 1.35mm square mesh be good enough?
Reading other posts I see you lay your mesh on top of your plants – I saw the photo of your cauliflowers. Do you always use your mesh like this? I am thinking in particular of calibrese and broccoli, which I am planning to grow a lot of because our family eats so much of it.
Ours is an organic site, and I am doing no dig – your book is my constant companion. I have managed to get a lot of well rotted horse manure onto the beds this spring, and we will have rain-water in butts, assuming it rains, so things should be better this year, however I would appreciate your thoughts.
Sounds exciting!
The slightly larger mesh (1.35mm) is what I use and it keeps most insects at bay, except flea beetle and some aphid. I once tried the fine mesh, on chinese cabbage which suffers so much from every insect, and found no improvement, I think because of cats scratching holes in it. Even one hole results in damage, perhaps through insects being trapped in there! So now I use the slightly larger mesh-hole, mostly for summer planted brassicas and carrots (against root fly – but again I had a few problems, from holes I think).
Yes I find it works well enough on top, although some insects can lay eggs through it where mesh is touching leaves. I don’t have time to make supports each time but it may be worth it. For mature cauli & calabrese you need a wide sheet thanks to their height. I aim to harvest them before butterflies are too prevalent, so I am planting cauli & calabrese now, from a January sowing indoors, to harvest in June, then sow calabrese late June for October harvest, and sow cauli early June for April harvest (varieties Aalsmeer and Jerome).
A friend nearby succeeds with fleece, new every year, the widest she can buy and quite loosely draped over all her brassicas. It is less robust than mesh so one use for keeping small insects out is all it can do, while mesh should serve for many seasons.
Hi Charles,
We are constructing a cage for our kale and broccoli after problems with pests last year. We work to organic principles . From looking at earlier posts in 2012 your advice seems to be that 1.35mm mesh will keep out most pests and black mesh will stand out less in our garden. Would this still be your advice? The only way to keep out aphids, which were also a problem, would be to use a very fine mesh? Do you have any experience of using nematodes against carrot fly?
LilyHmm pests!
Yes Lily, black netting is good, and UV treated so it lasts a long time.
A cage with 5mm mesh-size netting keeps out most moths & butterflies.
To go finer, you need white mesh, less attractive & more expensive.I have not tried nematodes v carrot fly.
My experience with nematodes is that they are expensive, somewhat challenging to use (e.g. need to keep ground moist after application) and are probably not worth the cost/effort, though others like them!
Mesh against carrot flies is effective except in v bad years!Hi Charles,
Many thanks for your advice. Hope to join one of your courses soon to learn more about growing veg.
LilyI have been planting marigolds, sweet alyssum, nasturtium and calendula are wonder companions for my gardens. I plant several types of marigolds, Mexican,French.. well, most any seed I can find.. I do not plant marigolds in rows, but singly, as they become large and quite beautiful as well as pest control buddies! There are also great companion vegs that help one another make it through the pesticles!! Here is just one resources I have found over time that helps me remember!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companion_plants#Flowers there are many more out there.. good gardening.. It will be a challenge this season here in the mountains of W. Washington state.. we have had two previous months of record rains.. 12+ inches in Feb, ’17 and 15+ inches just ending March, ’17. I can’t even think of removing the winter tarping from the veg gardens yet.. here comes another very late season after three years of progressively early planting. Have planted in March and early April the past couple of seasons.. looks like the “normal” July 5th summer here! Drats! LOLThanks for the tips, gardenjim.
I am sorry to hear about your weather, what a lot of rain! Here it has been a little drier than usual, and dry is better than wet for us, but one never know what is around the corner.Hi All
As a follow up to your posts here, I’ve usually found that the normal-size insect netting (not ultra-fine) usually lets through both whitefly and mealy cabbage aphid which can then reach plague proportions in the protected conditions inside the netting. However,I do live in Cambridgeshire where brassicas (oilseed rape) can be somewhat of a monoculture so we may have more of these pests around than most. Also, if anyone’s interested, you CAN get insect netting in black which is less obtrusive. I’ve seen it on the ‘Harrod Horticultural’ website, but not tried it myself.
Finally, there are some compensations for the rape fields. View from allotment.
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