Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Dora5 on April 11, 2012, 23:38
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I am very keen to make a frame / something to put the netting (enviromesh when I order it) over my carrots (future carrots I may add ;) ).
Any suggestions, please?
I have a brain block and do not know what is the best way to do it. I am getting very frustrated :mad: :D.
Until now mine had fleece over them, placed over bent 'chicken wire - like thing' ::). I am fed up of this as the fleece is being ripped on the metal plus I cannot see easily what is going on with my carrots (or lack of) :D.
I will also need to net my strawberries etc. and just wonder what do you put the netting over? (I do make a pseudo-frame from bamboo stakes but I am looking for something more sturdy :) )
Thank you in advance :)
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Check Here (http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=69457.msg889118#msg889118)
The middle pic shows DD's carrot fly defenses with pliable water piping simply bent over and the ends stuck into pieces of cane stuck into the soil as 'anchors' and the netting stretched over. The piping is quite durable, won't tear netting and easily moved.
Link amended so that it goes directly to the picture
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Thank you my dear :).
That's what I needed and it seems easy to do :) (even for me).
I shall definitely sleep better tonight ;).
I kept looking through past posts up until now and did not manage to find anything so thank you again...
I will now search for where to buy the water pipes from ;).
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Wilkos were selling 3m long cloches covered with enviromesh fabric - these included wire hoops and closable ends... cost around £7 I believe. Some Garden Centres stock similar things.
Just a thought - might be easier for you if it's a trial.
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Depends how many you're growing.
You'd need 4 of those to cover a couple of rows of what's under there - and there's 6 rows, so that's about, 12 cloches - and you wouldn't have the height!
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Depends how many you're growing.
You'd need 4 of those to cover a couple of rows of what's under there - and there's 6 rows, so that's about, 12 cloches - and you wouldn't have the height!
DD - what diameter piping do you use, and where do you get it from? Also how to anchor fleece and netting to the ground to secure?
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Have a look at this thread re the piping:
http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=88582.msg983567#msg983567
I weigh the edges of mine down with anything handy, bricks, water-filled milk bottles, scaffold poles..........
You can dig one edge in and then just flip one side off when you want to weed/harvest.
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last year I hade a cane 'panel' where the metal wire holding it together had rusted away, this gave me several hundred 6 foot lengths of split cane, I found that this, bent into a half circle with the ends poked into the ground a couple of feet apart, made a great support for netting over, you end up with a net tunnel about 2 foot high. you can weave additional supports in and also use sections through the mesh to hold it in place, to my mind a great use for something that would just have been thrown otherwise.
Grendel
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Depends how many you're growing.
You'd need 4 of those to cover a couple of rows of what's under there - and there's 6 rows, so that's about, 12 cloches - and you wouldn't have the height!
DD - what diameter piping do you use, and where do you get it from? Also how to anchor fleece and netting to the ground to secure?
I'm just about to buy a roll of MDPE pipe and at present Screwfix is very competitive. I'm getting a 50m roll of 25mm pipe
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I have 2 wooden beds made from scaffolding boards, 2 high, I then put the enviromesh on the top
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I've just bought some MDPE piping. I looked up prices at all the usual places, and the cheapest I found was on Amazon. They've got 20m and 25mm in 25M and 50M lengths. You have to pay a bit of P&P but even including that it was cheaper than any of the online or offline shops I looked at. I ordered 25M of 20mm and that was £13.65 plus £3.95 P&P.
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I don't net my strawberries or raspberries as a rule.
The birds around our site seem to like the challenge of breaking in to everyone elses netted fruit that they leave mine alone! ::)
And it's not because mine don't taste good - there's nothing like the flovour of a freshly picked homegrown strawberry!
Emma
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I use 2 ft length of 1 inch plastic pipe, as used for tank overflows and internal water. Plenty of this in skips.
Push the pipes into the ground about 3 ft apart and drape the mesh over. The mesh is quite stiff so it will support itself. If you put the pipes in the rows rather than between them they do not get in the way when you hoe or weed, which is a pain with hoops.
As DD, I bury one long side and anchor the others with whatever is available. I find wooden poles are best as they take no time to take off and replace.
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Thanks for all the ideas...
I will stick with the first one as I have already been to Screwfix to get the blue piping and down to the allotment to take some measurements...
DD, please could you answer a series of questions from me? :)
How long is your row? Or how often do you place the blue piping? Is there a best methoid to bend it? (I am a bit of a pain when it comes to things looking even and evenly spaced out ::) :D) Oh and how high is your arch? How long were individual pieces of the blue piping?
How wide and long did you buy the netting? My row is 5.3 meters long...
I am sorry for all these questions but I am not really a diy person... this is my first project and I would like for it to be near enough perfect :D
(Oh and that will be your chance to make up for wanting to eat my kittens ;) :tongue2:)
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(Oh and that will be your chance to make up for wanting to eat my kittens ;) :tongue2:)
:lol: :lol: :lol:
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Thanks for all the ideas...
I will stick with the first one as I have already been to Screwfix to get the blue piping and down to the allotment to take some measurements...
DD, please could you answer a series of questions from me? :)
How long is your row? Or how often do you place the blue piping? Is there a best methoid to bend it? (I am a bit of a pain when it comes to things looking even and evenly spaced out ::) :D) Oh and how high is your arch? How long were individual pieces of the blue piping?
How wide and long did you buy the netting? My row is 5.3 meters long...
I am sorry for all these questions but I am not really a diy person... this is my first project and I would like for it to be near enough perfect :D
(Oh and that will be your chance to make up for wanting to eat my kittens ;) :tongue2:)
Blimey - so many in one. This will have to be off the top of my head.
The row is 32' long.
Net goes on after the first hoeing of the year and stays on until winter.
The pipe comes in rolls and has that natural bend in it.
It's cut to span 4 x 1' rows, spaced a foot apart with about a foot either side, so it's a 5' width total, that should give you the scale to guess the height, which I've never measured.
I bought the netting long enough and wide enough to cover the span, with a bit extra.
If you go to somewhere like here, you can buy a size to suit.
http://www.gardening-naturally.com/acatalog/Veggiemesh.html#aEM001
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Thank you DD :)
All my questions answered :) (although I had to convert feet to meters :D )
Do you think 6 meters of enviromesh will be sufficient to cover 5.3 meter plot? It will leave about a foot on each side which now thinking about it may not be enough (that depends on the height :tongue2:). And if it is 5 feet wide (1.53 m) then 2 m width should be OK or not?
http://www.gardening-naturally.com/acatalog/Veggiemesh.html#aEM001
That is the website that I am going to order from :)
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It's stretching it to be honest, I'd go for a little larger, it will make life easier in the long run.
(I'll answer the cat question sometime, but it's a long story and I've only got time to pop in & out at the mo!).
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It's stretching it to be honest, I'd go for a little larger, it will make life easier in the long run.
(I'll answer the cat question sometime, but it's a long story and I've only got time to pop in & out at the mo!).
Ok, I'll go for the bigger size (have to work it out :) ). Thank you.
No problem (about the cat question :) ). I am off to allotment myself to have a go at the carot protection frame ;) once I place the order for enviromesh or veggiemesh as they call it ;).
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If each piece of pipe forms a semi circle and is 1.5m (5ft) at the base then the pipe will be 2.35m long. The net will need to be the same width plus enough to anchor it, say 15cm each side so net width needs to be 2.65m.
With a 1.5m base a semi-circle will give a 0.75m high tunnel. You will need to overlap the ends by 0.75m plus anchorage to cover the end gap.
If you do not trust my mathematics just measure the length of a piece of pipe and the height of the tunnel.
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Thank you Salmo :)
I do trust your maths :).
Decided on a 2.6m x 7m piece of enviromesh... but that would be 5cm shorter... :unsure: The next width up is 3.6m and the price for that piece would be approx £10 more...
I have to come back to this :D as I am too tired now...
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I always go for bigger mesh than I need - it can always be rolled up or cut.
I'm wondering whether tight net curtain would work?????????
Might work out cheaper???????
Emma
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Hi Emma,
I went for the 2.6m x 7m after a lot of thinking and taking into account Salmo's calculations :).
If need be I can always do 3 rows or reduce the 'outer' space to 25cm rather than the 30cm each side ;). I thought that I can do with saving the £10 as I spent too much today on things I did not even plan to buy two days ago :ohmy:. Hopefully it will all work out well and will last a while :).
If you put the pipes in the rows rather than between them they do not get in the way when you hoe or weed, which is a pain with hoops.
This is also a good idea. If Veggimesh that I ordered is not big enough, I will try this :). Or use the idea for other things :).
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I've planted my red cabbage too far apart for my hoops so one outer row is beneath a few centimetres of net which is a bit dodo.
Will seriously have to rethink. ;)
Emma
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Veggiemesh is reckoned to last 10 seasons, net curtains won't.
If you can afford it, go for the first option.
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but old net curtains work for a while, and they're often free ;)
Just make sure if using your grannie's old ones that they're the plain woven ones, not the holey/lacy type :D
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but old net curtains work for a while, and they're often free ;)
Just make sure if using your grannie's old ones that they're the plain woven ones, not the holey/lacy type :D
I wasn't expecting the net curtains to last long and as you say they could be cheap or free.
Obviously not going to go for pretty curtains, but the plain woven ones might just be tighter meshed than all my enviromesh (which doesn't stop caterpillars being laid on my brassicas).
I hate caterpillars - I'll try anything!
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One last question (I think ;) )...
How much of the blue piping do you put in the ground?
Thank you in advance :).
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One last question (I think ;) )...
How much of the blue piping do you put in the ground?
Thank you in advance :).
Some people put canes into the ground and fix the blue pipe to the end of each cane.
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Some people put canes into the ground and fix the blue pipe to the end of each cane.
Thank you. I'll do it like that :).
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Some people put canes into the ground and fix the blue pipe to the end of each cane.
Thank you. I'll do it like that :).
I have seen canes used to link the hoops together (single canes tied to the hop tops horizontally). I guess the idea is to give more rigidity and to keep the hops upright.
Good luck. :)