I started veggie gardening last year ... and had great success, unfortunately so did the local cabbage white butterfly population, who seemed to have passed the word that my Brassica's were the in-place for laying eggs.
This year I am going to have to take action ... and came across this option for a tunnel ...
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Black HDPE cheap enough on-line, now looking for suggestion for the rods to drive into the ground ... don't think standard bamboo is quite strong enough for this job, and it will eventually rot.
Any suggestion what to use ... thought about some 1/2" rebar ...
We've found the netting doesn't need to be the very fine mesh shown in the pictures - bird netting is fine - small white butterflies "cabbage whites" aren't so small they can get through that.
I haven't looked into what the costs of this system is, but I ran into an identical problem the previous year, compounded by the fact that the spray I was using to combat the caterpillars had lost it's potency
- OK, I'm not that green; so I was spraying, waiting for the little C's to die and then finding they had got even bigger and eating even more!!
I grow quite a lot of brassicas, have done for 30 years - cabbages, caulis, sprouts, calabrese, broccoli - and very often 20+ of each type so I'm planting upward of 200 plants a year. Part of the reason for this is to offset the losses due to caterpillars and cabbage root fly.
All gardeners are being forced to be greener now as most of the chemicals we used are no longer available. So a solution had to be found and I went for fleece - after all if the farmers use it then it must be OK - and boy was it OK. Now I may have been lucky last year but the brassica yield for me went through the roof. I will repeat the same planting this year, and If I get the same results I reckon I can near enough half my plantings in future. No failures at all to fly or caterpillars and what I didn't know was that fleece creates a micro-climate that raises the soil temperature by 3 degree C. and that is a major benefit - I've never succeeded with sprouts, but this year they looked like the picture on the packet.
I did the planting out and just laid the fleece over the top with pegs to hold it down. It was carried up by the plants as they grew and at odd occasions I had to shift the pegs.
A winner all round - inexpensive, easy to apply, very,very effective and I see no reason why it won't last 3 or 4 seasons.
Yes, there are other nettings that will keep butterflies at bay, but they won't keep cabbage root fly away and they won't generate the micro climate.
I went to Cambridge metal place - Mackays, and bought some 3/4x1/8 mild steel, cut to 6 ft lengths. Bent it round a barrel. Not elegant, but its on its third year.
We used a bit of fleece over our carrot barrel last year - result was a barrel full of carrots - unlike the year before when we have a barrel full or maggoty carrots, thanks to root-fly worm.
SWIMBO's just washed it (in the machine), and it's ready to go this year...
I haven't looked into what the costs of this system is, but I ran into an identical problem the previous year, compounded by the fact that the spray I was using to combat the caterpillars had lost it's potency
- OK, I'm not that green; so I was spraying, waiting for the little C's to die and then finding they had got even bigger and eating even more!! A winner all round - inexpensive, easy to apply, very,very effective and I see no reason why it won't last 3 or 4 seasons.
Yes, there are other nettings that will keep butterflies at bay, but they won't keep cabbage root fly away and they won't generate the micro climate.
On the sites discussing fleece, the negative side seemed to be water not getting through, so crops did not get enough moisture ?
Well, yeah bamboo will rot (though it won't be in the ground all the time), and is at risk of breaking, though bamboo seems strong for it's size, but it's cheap esp if you buy a bulk bundle. I'd probably start with this and see how it goes on, as I've got plnety of bamboo around the place
Wooden dowel - more expensive though, Haze,L sticks if you have access to them. rebar if you have some and it fits ok, whatever really
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