[Plantoid]

Has anyone used garden crop fleeces and is it worth while  holding them in place with netting over the them .

I'm asking  ask because the latest  forecasts are saying a long harsh spell of cold & wet perhaps like last year as the winds are coming down from the artic circle and likely to be staying..

[Lesley Silvester]

Well that'scheered me up no end.    Thought we might get a decent winter this year to make up for last.  I used fleece on blueberry bushesi  pots last year and it worked.  Don't know about putting net over the fleece though.  Mine just stayed on weighted down.

[Fleecewife]

 I have used fleece and nets but not together.  I found that both were fine until it snowed, when the snow was held by the nets or fleece and so crushed the plants beneath - this was 2' of snow which without the nets/fleece to lie on would mostly have fallen to the ground.  For shorter plants I make hoops of blue water pipe to hold the material up, but for taller plants I use canes with tennis balls on top (the most likely to collapse under the weight of snow).  Both are held down by long canes either threaded through the net or placed on top of the fleece, then pinned down with wire pins made of old fence wire.
I think the problem is that in Britain we tend to have very wet snow - great for snowballs - which doesn't drift down through the mesh as it does with dry powder snow.
Other than in that situation, you don't need nets to hold down the fleece, just strings next to each hoop passed over the top of the little tunnel formed, and attached to tent pegs.

So, no - this year I won't be using mesh or fleece outside but will leave my brassicas to cope as best they can (and probably be eaten by rabbits) and will grow other crops inside my polytunnel

[Plantoid]

Many thanks for your posts.

 i have been given some green rubber things to go on the ends of canes that can be linked together to make a frame each ball has six holes at right angles to each other and the canes are pused into a the tapering holes in the balls so i should be able to make a square box tent on  a couple of beds.

Something that may be useful to some of you .. I have purchased some overhead telephone wire that has three internal straining wires running throught it .
 i also got some 2 pigtail anchor wires and have now put a 7 mtr run over /along the centre line of my pond some 1 mtr high on two 1 inch thick steel bars driven into the ground .
 i have put two runs of 6 mm pressed out square netting  2 mtrs wide by 8 mtrs long and cable tied along the middle onto the wire to make a leaf proof tent  over the pond to keep out the leaves and hundreds of acorns off our three oak trees .

 I may take this idea further and make long big sloping sided tents for the raised  veg beds but use three sets of wires to make a four face  dutch house roof sort of covering .