Fleece masterclass

[LesMiserable]

Hi newbie here, can someone educate me?
I started a half plot on my local allotment in the New Year and I'm enjoying it a lot. I dug most of the eleven beds in January/February and covered a couple of them with cheap fleece from my local The Range. I must say it did work well, because when I lifted it to start work about a month ago, the weeds on the fleeced plot were many times the size of those on the unfleeced plots!
Now I've been reading about using heavy duty woven fleece like covers, to protect brassicas (and others) from caterpillars etc. and am completely confused.
Can someone tell me the difference between woven and unwoven and different sizes for different uses. I'm looking to buy online but have no idea what I want.
I'll also need to protect my fruit bushes and strawberry beds soon, what type of netting do I need, and how do I fix it?
Sorry so many questions, but with social distancing I can't go chatting to my fellow, much more experienced, allotment owners.

[veggiechicken]

Hi Les - let's try to cheer you up!!
Fleece is for protection - from frost and pests like cabbage white butterflies. I don[t use it myself so have no idea about the differences in density - but my guess is that the heavier ones will last longer than the flimsy ones

Weed membrane or cardboard is used to cover beds to stop weeds growing.

A fruit cage is the best thing to protect your fruit from birds (a frame covered in small gauge net. Remember that the bees need access to pollinate the fruit so you don't want to exclude everything.

Much the same for strawberries but not so tall!. Some of us make hoops out of water pipe and cover those with netting.

[Snoop Puss]

Sorry, I don't use fleece, so I can't answer your question. But plenty of knowledgeable people here, so I'm sure somebody will be along later.

Meanwhile, hello and welcome. Hope you have a great growing year.

[Guest]

Hello and welcome to the vine.

Not able to say much about fleece, however there are quite a few on here that use debris netting (the stuff used on scaffolding jobs) you can buy it online reasonably priced and mine is lasting really well.

[Mark_Riga]

I use the lightweight fleece, mainly for frost protection as you found out, it keeps the soil warm.
For fruit bushes it depends what they are. I find that black currants and raspberries are largely untouched. Blackbirds will take a few raspberries in the spring. Gooseberries are left alone till they are ripe. The main berries that blackbirds seem to go for are red currants. As for strawberries everything seems to go for them - slugs, mice, squirrels, blackbirds so depends what it is you are protecting them from. I covered mine last year with a plastic netting and they were ok for a while till some mice started at them and then a squirrel came along and that was the last I saw of them.

There is acurrent thread on protecting strawberries:
https://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gr...ls_101352.html

[Jungle Jane]

Environmesh is the type to use with brassicas to keep out the tiny moths & cabbage whites but not good for strawberries than need wider holes for bees