Agricultural Insect Netting Update

Bill and I have been using agricultural insect netting in our vegetable garden since 2022. On Nov. 22, 2024, I wrote a blog post about a problem we encountered with it. I’m happy to tell you that we’ve resolved it so wanted to provide an update.

Let’s start with some background on the agricultural insect netting product and the problem:

I’d been hearing about this product for years but couldn’t find a source. British and European gardeners have used it in their gardens and I was always so envious! Ag netting is great for providing a barrier against insects on certain crops plus you can see right through it. That means you can always see how the plants are growing, without having to lift off the cover. (I love that!)

In early 2022, I finally found a source which was Gardenport.com. (see more about this lower in the post)

In addition to using some of the netting over hoops for our broccoli bed, we also made two special covers. I’m referring to our hinged raised bed covers. We use them over our lettuce bed and the beet and Swiss chard bed. They also happen to be a DIY project in my book, The Vegetable Garden Pest Handbook. Although, when I wrote the book, we used floating row cover because the ag netting wasn’t yet available.

The hinged covers worked great for the 2022, 2023 and most of the 2024 seasons. Near the end of 2024, we discovered the ag insect netting was splitting along some of the hoops. What?! How could that be possible when it’s such a durable product?

Bill and I knew we were going to have to come up with a workable solution. We mulled it over during the winter and Bill came up with a great solution to address a design flaw.

When we switched from floating row cover to the netting, there were two potential problems:

• The black poly sprinkler pipe hoops were probably heating up in the sun.
• We pulled the ag netting over the hoops much too tightly. That means they were in direct contact with the hoops.

When you combine those two things, it’s a recipe for the netting to degrade. Darn! Here’s what we did as a solution:

• We cut long strips of floating row cover and wound them around each of the hoops in the hinged cover.
• When we added a new sheet of insect netting, we were careful NOT pull it so tightly.

As you can see by the photos, the covers look slightly different. So far, they’re working great.

Of course, only time will tell if these two solutions will prevent this from happening again. I sure hope it will, though. We love the hinged raised bed covers so we really want them to work!

There’s one last important thing I wanted to clarify about agricultural insect netting.

We did not encounter any problems with just hanging the ag netting over black poly pipes. That sheet of netting has been used for 3 full garden seasons without any problems at all. That tells us it was the tightness of the netting on the black pipes was the problem.

If you’re interested in seeing what the ag netting looks like and purchasing some, it’s in my Amazon Store. Just look under the “Organic Gardening Products” category. As an Amazon Associate, I earn a commission from qualifying purchases. However, that will not impact the price you pay in the least.

If you’d like to read my previous post about agricultural insect netting, here’s a link to it.