No Brassica Cage but a Brassica Net

[MarkHackwell]

I was just lying in bed having a think about how to cover my allotment brassicas this year. I always seem to buy green netting, pegs and then put this over blue hoops. But I need more blue tubing to make more hoops and also the green netting keeps splitting so this makes bigger holes. Soo I was thinking about getting Environmesh or Veggiemesh and just lying it over top of the Brassicas, pegging it down around the edge of course, and hopefully the cabbage white won't get in. Any idea on if it would work?

[Kristen]

Enviromesh is relatively expensive and a slightly larger mesh will keep cabbage whites out - e.g. scaffolders debris netting.

Re: laying on the plants - Cabbage White can lay eggs through netting - not sure about Enviromesh though - so there is a risk that if leaf touches netting that you will get eggs, even if the Cabbage White does not get inside the netting.

[lottie dolly]

Have heard said on here that,fine net voil works,from the likes of kia..& d....m,have a look in any curtain/net shops,it will not let things through,but you will have to be thorogh on sealing it to the soil,

[Penellype]

I had a piece of veggiemesh supported on canes with toppers on over my mizuna and kohlrabi. When the last lot of snow was forecast I took out the canes and dropped the veggiemesh loosely on top of the plants, pegged down well at the edges. Then we had some strong winds and this was the result:



The mizuna in particular was pretty much shreded, although it is growing back. I would therefore advise caution if you are thinking of laying this sort of material over plants, particularly anything with delicate leaves.

[Mark Lottie]

All the cabbages in my nets that touch the sides have holes from cabbage fly, so I'd advise that's best to keep the plants away from the net

[Potstubsdustbins]

I used to use the green netting then last year SWMBO espied some pond netting in Wilcos, It is black with smaller holes than the standard garden netting and seems much stronger and it is the same price. Last year on the cage with this net on we had 6/7 caterpillars all season, I intend to convert all my cages to this type of net this spring.

[Spunky]

I've never seen enviro mesh in the flesh it might work if the mesh is really fine but the eggs are tiny try it on a couple and see how you get on

[WPG]

Last year I didn't bother with hoops or cages, and just laid environmesh over my brassicas - weighing it down with bricks on either side. Although it did touch the plant foliage there wasn't any sign of caterpillars. The brassicas seemed to grow really well under it too, especially the sprout plants.
Like Kristen says, environmesh is pretty expensive - though its machine washable and will last for years.

[Snow]

I found laying net on top doesn't stop the blighters and if I'm going to effort to try and keep them off I figure I might as well do it properly. I build a frame that sits around the bed out of cheap wood battens and drilled holes and fed through thick wire as hoops (£5 for a reel of galvanised from B&Q was cheapest) and I've bought some debris netting which should work really well once I've used cable ties to close the seems - will be testing this later in the year. Hopefully cheap, effective and long lasting.

[Potstubsdustbins]

^^^^^^^^^^^^ One tip get releasable cable ties, makes life much easier.

[Terryr]

I agree with WPG. I bought some enviromesh last year and supported it with canes and knackered solar lights over my brassica seedlings and let them grown into it. I was a bit lax with sealing the edges and a few butterflies got in. However, the overall damage from caterpillars was the least I have had in some 20+ years of growing. Doing it again this year but with better sealing. I am thinking of buying another mesh (not cheap) for my carrots.

Terryr