[princesslayer]

How does anyone protect their brassicas from butterfly's etc? Small nets, big nets, walk in cage? Leave them to it?

Just pondering my options now I've got some lovely pristine looking seedlings about to get settled in!

Thanks

[Louise Gaunt]

I use hoops bought from Gardening naturally with their netting to make small protective coverings. I started with the plastic hoops but they get brittle and snap, so this year I am replacing them with the metal hoops.

[pgkevet]

I built some DIY folding A-fram mesh cages in the first year - more to protect them from pheasants as seedlings. But it's a real PITA carting them from to storage and working round them to weed etc.
So I put them away, grow pheasant replacement spares (they only nibble occasional seedlings and don;t bother much now since wife feeds them all anyway!).

I'm brutally simple about caterpillars on the amount of brassica I grow.. spray them. Picking by hand would be endless on 300+ odd plants

[cloddopper]

My experience ...
Last year I purchase some 12 foot long x 12 foot wide anti butterfly netting .
Ha ha!   The butterflies just dropped their wings and slithered in through the diagonal dimension BTDS..
I didn't find out till a few days later ,when I discovered the hatching eggs .
 Arragh !   I went and purchased a chemical shotgun called plant rescue . It took two session to get the little buggers they were everywhere . Some of the greens looked like miniature green lace trees before I regained control of the greens.

 This year is a bit of a No, No for me wrt much gardening due to my recent back surgery, but I do now have some 2.5 mm white nylon mesh 3 mtrs wide and about 12 mtrs long.
 This came from Harrods Garden products . I also have  the carbon fibre rod/support from a kiddies wrecked self erecting tent ( it's about 6 mm in dia ) .  I've cut it into four equal lengths of about 2.1 mtrs . These will be used to make two " igloo " frames to go inside  two of  my 3x3 sq foot raised brick beds . 
You still have to ensure that the butterflies cannot walk on the mesh and lay their eggs in through the holes of the mesh .  You also need a good inch of separation between the netting & the plants inside.

 The 2.5 mm mesh is also small enough to stop carrot fly ..... another pest that wrecked my carrots last year , despite the lowest edge of my beds being 900 mm above the mean ground level .
So much for the old wives tale that says carrot fly don't fly above 18 inches off the ground . My .900 mm brickwork is three feet off the ground

[cloddopper]

I built some DIY folding A-fram mesh cages in the first year - more to protect them from pheasants as seedlings. But it's a real PITA carting them from to storage and working round them to weed etc.
So I put them away, grow pheasant replacement spares (they only nibble occasional seedlings and don;t bother much now since wife feeds them all anyway!).

I'm brutally simple about caterpillars on the amount of brassica I grow.. spray them. Picking by hand would be endless on 300+ odd plants

 Yes the magic spray  is effective and lasts a fair while .so long as you follow the destruction's and implement the withdrawal period plus a couple of days there won't be much wrong with the end produce.

 Two years or so ago on a USA gardening site I play on folk were using all manner of " natural home made organic sprays ".
They didn't like it when I posted a gas spectrum analyst  of some of the supposedly safe natural treatments they were using.

Several of the ingredients they were using were high on the human kidney failure chemical charts and as they had no accurate way of setting the doses nor any info on the safe withdrawal from use  periods it made me stop from ever using them .

 So these home treatments were to my mind  bloody dangerous things to suggest to unsuspecting readers many who might kids and themselves already have kidney damage due to diabetes ( me for one )  drinking habits and drug usage  prescribed or otherwise.

[Fleecewife]

Yes, the black diamond mesh causes great hilarity amongst the butterfly population 

Now, I just use the 'find it and squish it' approach.  I only grow about 40 mixed brassica plants, and it can be quite relaxing wandering along in the sunshine, turning the leaves upside down and searching for eggs.  The most annoying ones are the soft bright green ones, which hide right in the middle of cabbages, invisible, eating out the heart.  My hens will eat those when I catch them, but they hate the cabbage white caterpillars - think they must be bitter, or look like something poisonous.
I don't use chemicals in my veggie patch, except occasionally plain liquid soap.  I'd rather have a few holes in the leaves than go down that route.

[sabrina]

I have tried all sorts but still I lose a lot of plants so this year they are going in the pollytunnel and i will see how that works. i have grown sprouts and cabbage in there with good results. Leaks and carrots did not do well. Giving cauliflower a go and a few other things. I have decided to grow more fruit in the veg patch. Planted out 42 new strawberry plants. Young blackcurrent bushes. Already have 3 apple trees, and herbs.

[princesslayer]

Thanks all.  I've gone for some 7mm net from Harrods Gardening (nice website!) and the find and squish approach this year.  I would rather avoid chemicals if possible. I need to keep the pigeons off, so the net should at least do that!

[Fleecewife]

I just planted out my summer brassicas today, and all I had to cover them was the diamond mesh.  As with yours, it will keep the pigeons off and I will be able to spend many idle hours squishing caterpillars and eggs    Hopefully it will keep the dogs off too - they've already trampled quite a few plants, mainly lettuce.
The brassicas are looking good 

[Lesley Silvester]

I have a mesh tunnel over some spring brassicas and yesterday watched a large fly trying to get OUT.

[doganjo]

I once tried an idea I hear on the radio for aphids which most definitely worked but i can't remember if it was on flowers or food - fairy liquid in water sprayed all over the plants - apparently stops them being able to cling to the leaves - surface tension goes.

I used this method on my gooseberry plants last year  when i saw caterpillars and saved my berries.  Little blighters fell to teh ground and as I did it every day they starved to death!   
Could I use that on brassicas too? 

[Fleecewife]

Ecover would be better    My mother used this method on any plants with any type of aphid, including herbs and veg.  You need to wash the food before you eat it though.  It's pretty similar to the 'insecticidal soap' sold for organic systems.  I think it works by breaking the surface tension and preventing the insects breathing - they breathe through pores all over their bodies. Or something.   It doesn't work very well on the kind of aphid like a disc stuck to the leaf, or on those woolly white aphids, because the soap can't get to the pores.  Some brassica aphids are very waxy, so I don't think it would work against them.
I couldn't leave cabbage white caterpillars long enough without squishing them for the soap or detergent to work - you have to apply it every day til they're all dead.

[benkt]

We use hoops sawn off from a roll of blue, plastic water pipe covered with enviromesh to make little tunnels. It seems to work pretty well, if a little pricey for the mesh. For those beds we don't have enough of the good enviromesh for, we use scaffolding netting which is 10 times cheaper and but only 5 times less effective!

[Fleecewife]

We use those hoops too, but for the black mesh I keep it up off the crop by dotting canes around the area to be covered, with old tennis balls pushed onto them.  Upended flower pots don't work as they blow off, cane eye protectors don't work as the hole size in the mesh allows them to poke through, and I can't afford 'build-a-balls'.

[princesslayer]

I have a mesh tunnel over some spring brassicas and yesterday watched a large fly trying to get OUT.

Is it possible it hatched from somewhere in the tunnel?

 I had diamond mesh last year, and it was quite frustrating watching the butterfly's fluttering around inside trying to get out...

I'll try some Ecover solution too, thanks all. The hoops suggestion is a good one but I need something pretty tall for the sprouts and sprouting broccoli.  I also want to be able to get in easily and not have to lift something off.  Last year my first brassica bed resembled a cabbage/weed/sprouting broccoli forest which barely yielded anything edible.  I'm going for a big cage approach this year that I can walk into.  We'll see if that works!