Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: bobbyt on April 14, 2024, 17:18
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Can anyone please recommend any pea protection netting that lets bees in and keeps out pests. All the netting I try always ends up in a tangled mess, and thats just when I unpack from new! >:(
Perhaps I should just pay a bit more. I find most of the netting I've used is difficult to stretch over the pea supports, and is totally unworkable unless you have about 3 pairs of hands. Please help if you can. :D
Need a few nets about 3 x 3 metres.
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To keep out pests, do you mean insects and, if so, the bees will be kept out too.
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No, its mainly birds and rabbits, and rats - mainly a deterrent for them as they sometimes dig under anyway, but not that often. I had some plastic netting with big squares (150mm) but it was a nightmare to deal with. I was thinking something with 2.5cm squares?
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To keep out pests, do you mean insects and, if so, the bees will be kept out too.
Peas are self pollinating and have 'perfect' flowers. They do not need insects for pollination.
I have used netting from Gardening Naturally quite successfully, but pea netting is always a nuisance, whatever you do they start to cling to it which makes harvesting difficult, particularly on a tall pea. The only way round this is to have the frame far enough away so the peas cannot attach themselves to it.
If you want to keep pea moth out, I think the only solution is a very fine netting such as enviromesh or equivalent.
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It sounds like you've probably previously bought the cheap and inflexible type of netting that is horribly "catchy" and gets tangled easily. If you try some of the soft, woven type (I think it's usually HDPE plastic), you should find that much easier to untangle. If you have a big area of it it's still a pain getting it set up, but I manage on my own to deal with quite big areas.
e.g. https://www.gardening-naturally.com/soft-butterfly-netting
I use this to protect peas and strawberries against rabbitts and brassicas against rabbits and butterflies. I wish there was slug netting though...
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Thanks all, as well as the netting suggested, also found this https://www.gardening-naturally.com/anti-bird-netting which would be suitable as well. good outcome, have a choice of two now :D
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To keep out pests, do you mean insects and, if so, the bees will be kept out too.
Peas are self pollinating and have 'perfect' flowers. They do not need insects for pollination.
I have used netting from Gardening Naturally quite successfully, but pea netting is always a nuisance, whatever you do they start to cling to it which makes harvesting difficult, particularly on a tall pea. The only way round this is to have the frame far enough away so the peas cannot attach themselves to it.
If you want to keep pea moth out, I think the only solution is a very fine netting such as enviromesh or equivalent.
Learnt something new today, didn't know about the self pollinating with peas. What a great site this is ! :D