general crop protection

[rdak]

Well, the time when we'll all be sowing up at the allotment is getting near, and as it's my first full year I wanted to get some advice on how much protection people give their crops. I am definately going to use fleece for carrots, but from these boards, people are using netting on brassicas to stop caterpillars, netting on peas to stop birds etc. etc.

Would people advise that I protect all these crops, or should I just see if they get attacked and then react to it? My plot doesn't seem to have rabbits, but lots of pigeons!

advice most welcome, otherwise my allotment may end up being a fortress unnecessarily!

[tim]

Fleece yes. Netting traps birds, does not stop pigeons pecking through and does not ward off cabbage whites or aphid.
But, for other than carrots, at 4 times the price, but everlasting - environmesh. = Tim

[ina]

Hi rdak. I've never used anything over carrots but sow very early in the year. I recently read something interesting about carrot fly, don't know if it holds true.

Carrot flies don't lay eggs after 16.00hrs. It was advised to do any weeding, thinning or whatever that disturbs the plants and gives of carrot fly inviting smell, after that time. True or not, nothing to lose by keeping that in mind.

Blue berries and strawberries go under nets when the fruits start turning colour.

Beans that grow on poles get miniature teepees of chickenwire around the base of the pole where the beans are sown. I sow extra beans (to fill up gaps) in plastic balcony flower boxes with a chickenwire tent folded around. Beans without poles get a long piece of fine chickenwire folded double lengthways to make a long tent over each row, pinched closed at the ends, still the mice find their way in but the birds don't. I remove all the chickenwire when the seedlings reach the top.

We do have rabbits so I put fencing around the part with rabbit food.

[Mrs Ava]

I have never protected carrots at all when on my Surrey plot, or in my garden, but this will be my first season on my new Essex lottie so who knows what will happen!  

Pigeons do seem to be a pain on our site, the fat lumps sat on one chaps 'cage' and reached in to the sprouts!  Hubby is in charge of some sort of pigeon stopper.  I think for this year, that will be about my lot.  

We don't have a rabbit problem, or at least not that I am aware of, we do have lots of foxes so they may well keep the rabbits under control.

I have collected lots of those free CD's to use as bird scarers around my soft fruits, but again, I don't know if it is luck, but the only fruit I seem to loose to the birds are blueberry's.

No help whatsoever, sorry Ross.   :-/

p.s. How are your broady's?

[rdak]

broady's doing OK in the garden- not sure about allotment ones as the weather has stopped me going recently. Am going to sow some more soon. Do you think I should use the same type--not sure whether they would cross pollinate.

that makes me wonder- has anyone accidentally or purposefully crossed two varieties and come up with something better than the originals? Any veg, not just broad beans.