Horrors! Here in one of the colder areas of Zone 5, I saw a
cabbage butterfly today. May 4. I didn't think they'd show
up until much later.

I hurriedly covered my brassicas with floating row cover - I
hope this works. I don't see how it can fail, actually.

The row cover is fairly expensive.

The next time I get over to Wal-Mart (fabric department),
I'll see how much nylon net costs per yard - that might be a
cheaper way to go.

Pat

Or try the second hand store for some old sheer curtains dirt cheap.
Roz
az usa

On Sat, 10 May 2003 09:45:52 -0700, "
wrote:

Or try the second hand store for some old sheer curtains dirt cheap.

Excellent idea!

I bought some nylon netting at Wal-Mart last week - it's 60
inches wide and cost $0.57/yard. That's pretty cheap also.

I like it better than the row cover (I've decided) because I
can see through it: does the plant need watering or
weeding, etc.?

Someone suggested nylon netting for this purpose, I can't
remember if it was here on this newsgroup or on a mailing
list. But it's an excellent idea, too.

It's such a joy to have beautiful brassicas with NO INSECT
DAMAGE. I picked a bok choy yesterday: it's
picture-perfect, looks just like a picture in a seed
catalog.

Wow! This is really nice. It's well worth the trouble of
making a chicken wire cylinder (or whatever) and covering
the plant. I use clothespins to hold the nylon net (or row
cover) to the chicken wire.

Pat

The more you say, the more I like the idea of nylon netting. Great idea.
Roz

On Sun, 11 May 2003 15:53:55 -0700, "
wrote:

The more you say, the more I like the idea of nylon netting. Great idea.

I like it too, it's really nice. I'll cover my eggplant
plants up too: no flea-beatle damage! And my bush beans -
no Mexican bean-beatle damage! But I'll use it mainly for
the brassicas. Once I've got the chicken wire cylinders
made, I'll use them from year-to-year so it won't be as much
work in the following years.

It looks silly in the garden, though. My garden looks
pretty silly at the moment in any case: tire planters,
white nylon net, WalloWaters..... We're still a couple of
weeks before frost date here.

For complex reasons I won't go into here (involving a
high-jumping dog), we had to run a rope above the garden
fence, and we're hanging AOL (and other) junk CDs from the
rope.

My garden will be a work of 'garden art'. Or whatever.

The front yard (visible from the street) is - sad to say -
rather conventional-looking: oak tree, daffodils, day
lilies. I'll again have two flower boxes of petunias on the
front porch, and I'll have morning glories growing up the
front-porch pillars.

Pat

On Mon, 12 May 2003 07:52:43 -0400, Pat Meadows
wrote:

On Sun, 11 May 2003 15:53:55 -0700, "
wrote:

The more you say, the more I like the idea of nylon netting. Great idea.

I like it too, it's really nice. I'll cover my eggplant
plants up too: no flea-beatle damage! And my bush beans -
no Mexican bean-beatle damage!

Follow-up to my own post:

Both eggplants and beans are self-pollinating - this
wouldn't work for all veggies. Some would need to be
uncovered to allow pollination by insects.

Pat