Insect mesh and fleece barrier

How it works

A physical wall. The pest never reaches the crop, so nothing has to be killed and nothing can go wrong chemically.

Recipe

0.8 mm mesh for carrot fly and flea beetle; standard fine netting for butterflies. Support it on hoops so no leaf touches the mesh, and bury or weigh down every edge.

How to apply

Cover from the day of sowing or planting, before the pest arrives. Lift only to weed, and reseal completely. Remove from insect-pollinated crops at flowering.

Targets — pests

Carrot fly, Cabbage white, Cabbage root fly, Flea beetle, Leek moth, Birds

Targets — diseases

Not recorded — the field is blank rather than guessed.

Supplies: Insect mesh 0.8 mm, Fleece, Hoops and pegs

Days to harvest after spraying: 0

Best months: not recorded

Cautions

A single gap makes it worthless - and worse, traps the pest inside. Never cover ground where the same crop family grew last year: root fly may hatch under the net.

The thing people get wrong

This is the highest-return organic technique in the whole app and the one people skip because it is not a bottle. A properly sealed net gives near-perfect carrot fly and cabbage white control - no spray on this list comes close.