Although the weather was lovely to cycle to the Hill, & I'd been to Wilko to buy a pack of pond netting (more robust & manageable than flimsy pea netting) at lunchtime, I had real problems in making an adequate netting cover to protect the brassicas.
I put balls-on-sticks into the ground roughly level, then Jason (behind retired Maureen) was on hand to hold the netting down over the whole caboodle whilst I trying various stick-lowering and brick/board combinations to hold the edges down.All the while I was very aware that a couple of the cabbages were pushed sideways against the edges of the netting, and the only way to stretch the netting over the whole width was to severely limit the vertical aspirations of one of the brussels sprouts.
One look at neighbour Ted's brassica cage when I'd done the best I could with what I'd got confirmed that (a) the supports are too low and (b) the netting is inadequate.
To add insult to injury, Jason pointed out two three clusters of caterpillars making merry under the netting, until I evicted them.
So Saturday's job will be to recycle the pea frame braces which are about 4' long as vertical supports, with bamboo canes as horizontal supports, and the shed will be open in order to buy netting sufficient to cover the entire site, should I so wish.
The White Butterflies are a bl**dy nuisance aren't they? I get more damage to my brassicas from the pigeons though. I finally invetsed in some enviromesh which is covering a selection of winter greens at the moment.
ReplyDeleteIt might come to that, Flum - I want to experiment with the best process of covering the beds then I can move onto the 'with what'.
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