[Jai]

I'll be staight up, i'm not the most wealthiest bloke in the world! Last year  I lost a few brassicas to bugs munching on the leaves, and I understand that using cloches are a good deterant. I have about 50 allsorted brassica plugs that I put out and the price of cloches seems to be quite a lot to cover that many plants. Are there any budget ideas or does anyone no of any other natural defences against leaf munchers?

[Bluedave]

I've made a wooden frame from 2cm x 4cm legnths that i got from B&Q (bought them for something else just can't remember what now!). They were about £1.20 for a 2.4m length. Yo can cut to size and then cover with either netting or polythene. Not covered mine yet but i've made a monster frame 2.4m long by 50cm high by 50 cm wide. Total cost about £11 when covered with polythene. Most i've seen in local garden centres are about half this size for twice the price.

[agingchick]

In the last few years I have been buying those small green houses for my tomato plants they only last a couple of years before the plastic goes, so I took the tops of them and used them as a frame and used the plastic that my new mattress was delivered in hey presto a cloche that didn't cost me anything and saved me a trip to the tip for a while.
Diane

[noshed]

I can't see that you'd need to put cloches on brassicas in Margate. Just get some netting from the pound shop to keep off the pigeons and sprinkle some slug pellets under the netting to deal with the slugs.
The netting will stop the birds eating the poisoned slugs. Or you could try cheap lager in a jar sunk into the ground - the slugs jump in and binge drink like teenagers.

[spiderlyn]

Hi Jai... My hubby made me a cloch.. from a bit of wood from Wickes and poythene we had laying about.. total cost about £6!! it has done its job well.. and later on when, I don't need the Polythene, I'll take it off and use some cheap netting.. to keep those pesky pests of!!  I have a pic somewhere so I'll post it for you to gander at

[Runwell-Steve]

Scaffolders Debris netting is ideal for keeping the birds and the butterflies off of your brassicas.  If you know any builders or scaffolders they may be able to liberate some for you.  There is bound to be at least one builder on your allotment site, I think it's mandatory to have at least one.

[chrisjsmith]

I use cheap £1.50 storage boxes from Tesco turned upside down.  Work perfectly and I have tonnes of them left over from my last house move.

Similar to these: http://www.organizeit.com/images/cb-60.jpg

You should be able to get them big enough.

[solway cropper]

My next-door neighbour works for a bottled water company and he brings me loads of 5 litre plastic bottles. Cut the bottoms out and they make great cloches till the plants get well and truly established. After that I recommend scaffold netting to keep off the cabbage whites. Failing that have a trawl round round the charity shops and see if they have any cheap net curtains.

[Jai]

lots of good ideas, thanks

[girlfromthesouth]

agingchick..... we did almost the same-used the plastic from a new matress tacked onto a guinea pig run. When it gets warmer we'll take the plastic off and the piglet can use it again it's a win win.

[lacewing]

I would not recommend using plastic to cover brassicas. They don't like being too warm and it may cause them to bolt later on. Netting would be the answer! If you want to make cheap cloches for other use, buy some sheets of corrigated plastic and curve it into a cloche shape, this can be held in place with pegs in the ground or strong wire to hold the shape, use any packing plastic or bubble wrap to colse the ends.

[savbo]

I'm going to try using a few old bike wheel rims as cloche hoops... and the spokes make lots of useful pegs/ties...

[Trikidiki]

I've had some cloches for about 10 years that I made from a divan bed.

The divan was a double but folded in the middle for transportation.

I stripped off the material, padding and the hardboard. This left two wooden frames which I covered with the polythene from the new bed and matress (it only lasts about a season as it is not UV stable). They have been recovered a few times with UV stable polythene. I have sometimes left polythene on the sides then I made a frame to cover he top to which I attached plastic trellis to keep the birds off the plants below.

They pretty much fitted widthwise on my beds at home which are 1.3m but overhang a little to much on the 1.2m beds on the allotment.

[Paul Plots]

I have several sheets of polycarbonate roofing from our conservatory roof when we had a new one last year. I chopped the sheets into shorter sections and this makes an easily put together cloche for larger plants. A few bits of hefty wire and some canes does the trick.

Below:
....a good buy from Lidls about three years ago... 3 metres long, folds away and cost only around £3. I bought four and they have lasted well.

[mumofstig]

I have one of those Lidl ones, and keep hoping they will get them in again, butno luck so far