Brassicas – open to attack by birds and Cabbage White butterfly, so I stick 4ft bamboo canes in all around the edges leaving 3ft out, small drinks bottles on the tops to stop netting slipping down and drape insect gauge netting over the entire bed; pegging down with stout wire pegs I make from fence post wire, wire coathangers, etc, etc. Plastic bottles come from picking up every one I see while walking my dog through the year. Locals think I’m an eccentric.
Carrots – open to attack by the dreaded Carrot fly. I understand Carrot fly can glide in from higher places – fences etc so I make a perimeter fence out of bamboo and woven plastic postal sacks, about 3 x 4 feet and 3 feet high; just low enough to sow, plant in and water if need.
Peas – young shoots and pods prone to being eaten by birds. Tall 6 foot A frame with bird netting draped completely all around with no openings for birds to get trapped inside. The pea plants generally don’t reach 6 feet but this is so that the plant tends to stay inside the cage and not poke through and out. Any stems that do make it through I consider ok for the birds to take.
Dwarf Beans – I think these are open to being eaten by birds so I make a cage out of bamboo and some aluminium legs from a couple of old picnic chairs and drape over bird netting, pegging with wire at the bottoms. I have also planted some open among the sweetcorn this year to see if they really are considered bird food; I may be netting unnecessarily here, I don’t know.
Strawberries – once in fruit I drape bird netting over bamboo canes and bottles just high enough to clear the plants.
A few things to watch when netting:
Any Brassica leaf that brushes against the netting from the inside is accessible to the Cabbage White butterfly to lay its eggs. That is how you get Cabbage White caterpillars on your cabbages etc even if you net from the seedling stage. Plant far enough in to allow for leaf spread and keep an eye out for caterpillars regardless of netting.
Birds – there is nothing more sad than to see that a bird got into your netted beds but panicked because it couldn’t find its way out and is now dead or worse – dying – because it has got itself wrapped in your netting. There is no crop worth the death of a song bird. I always make sure the netted areas are completely closed, pegged down at regular intervals and I also put in taller bamboo canes which poke through the netting and tie a piece of plastic bag to the top end like a flag near the netting, which I hope and fancy gives an early warning that there is a fine net there so don’t fly too close. This one is unproven, but I would rather do it and be wrong than not do it and have to dispatch an injured bird.
Storage – because I always put out the same netted stations every year as I rotate around the plot, when it comes to close of the year I tie my nets into skeins with a note at the long end (so I know which way round to drape them) to say which station it was for. Saves guessing which size net is for which job next year. I do the same with the canes – bundle and label which job they are to do. Wire pegs go in a terracotta plant pot in the shed for next year.
There’s my two penneth. I hope some of it helps.