Plant protection without pesticide

Hello Fellow Gardeners,

My 'beef' is sharing my crop with pests. I really don't mind sharing but they are greedy and take it all given half a chance. And I really don't like using any pesticide, even if it's 'organic'. I've come up with a really simple and fun way of setting-up really sturdy and flexible plant protection cages and frames that works like a dream. Netting up cages used to take a lot of time and I've also devised a netting system that really effective and greatly reduces the net-up time. My question is, if this is turned into a product (and I am well into making production enquiries), do you think there is an interest in gardeners being able to protect their crops WITHOUT using pesticide?

Do your cages and netting deal at all with insects, or do they mainly just keep out larger pests? I'm assuming it's really just the larger pests, then your real question ought to be how much better are your cages & netting than the types of cages and netting that are already out there. Yes, there are chemical repellents you can buy to keep things from coming in and eating your stuff, but most of them don't really work very well, so people who are serious about keeping things out of their crops most likely don't use them very much. If you're serious about developing a product, I'd recommend doing some market research to understand what people like/don't like about their current caging & netting systems, are the problems they have big ones that are a huge problem or are they just slightly annoying (in which case they'd be less likely to switch to your product), and does your system really solve the problems that they have with the current products, or is it just a small improvement over what they've got now. You might also consider commercial growers as your target audience rather than gardeners, for them the speed with which they can get nets put up is probably a more critical factor, so if gardeners don't really notice a difference with your product, they might. Not to mention they'd buy more than an individual gardener would!

Insects are a different question, there aren't as many chemical free solutions, but for me personally I'd rather get out there with the garden hose and a bucket of ladybugs rather than putting up a bunch of cages all over the garden which I won't like the look of and would be a lot more effort to put up. Based on your description I can't picture it doing much to keep insects out, but in case it does I figured I'd throw that part in there.

How about this: from many, many timed experiments, I've set up cages using the market leading product, netted them up and the time it takes range from 40 mins. for smaller cages to 2 hrs. 10 mins for bigger ones. Using my system, I reduced it to 8 mins. through to 20 mins. max. There are all sorts of appropriate netting on the market for all purposes so, Yes, my cages protected my crops very successfully from the bigger pests to small critters - insects.

I came up with my idea from my frustration with the current leading product and in fact, I recently found a forum (in UK) where gardeners were discussing how to make the product they've bought to work properly! My product actually answered to all the flaws and limitations they discussed which was most satisfying.

How much of an improvement is my idea to the current available product on the market? A lot I'd say. The flaws the gardeners in the forum were battling with were that 1) the product needed specific diameter rods. This of course is another expense they were unprepared for when they made the purchase. My idea allows a whole range of diameter rods to be used, like cheap and plentiful bamboo canes. 2) they could only build cages that are right-angled. My cages, because of the infinitely flexible joints, allow cages of any shape to be built. 3) the insertion depth for the rods is only 1/2 inch. Mine is 2 inches making for a very stable cage. 4) the maximum height that's 'workable' is 4ft. Using my method, I've built cages 12ft. wide X 10ft. deep X 6ft. 6ins. high.

Ladybugs are wonderful but I think it would be great too to have another alternative that works. Your suggestion to approach the commercial growers is very sound - do they ever give any time to a single mum like me?! I wouldn't know how to go about it anyway. Any Ideas???

One option to consider would be to find a company that would be interested in selling/marketing it for you. They'll know how to do everything from marketing it to gardeners to approaching the commercial people to manufacturing it, etc. Make sure you've filed your patents on it first before you go shopping it around to companies though. If you've got a really good understanding of marketing and how to run a business then by all means go for it your own, but if you don't, finding someone to market it for you can save you a lot of hassle. You should still have an idea of how much money you'd be able to make with your product before you approach companies though, otherwise you won't know whether they're making you a good offer or not, even if they're a good reliable company, they're going to try to get it for as little as possible so they can maximize their profit, so if you haven't done your homework you could come up short.

I would see if you can find info on how many people currently buy these cage systems, then figure out how much profit you could make on each system. I really think your market is people who are already using cages and are frustrated with the current product. You may get a few new users who liked the idea of cages but thought the old ones were too much trouble, but I don't think the cages are going to appeal to a ton of people who aren't already using them. For me personally, there is no way you'd talk me into using cages, IPM works perfectly well for me as a chemical free method, I wouldn't like the look of the cages in my garden or the effort to set them up even if yours are quicker than other systems. Plus I have a hard time believing that they'll keep out any but the largest insects. If they're so tight that aphids and spider mites can't get in, then I can't imagine that the plants get the light and air that they need, so I would always wonder whether the fact that you didn't see too many insects on your plants was just a coincidence and had nothing to do with the cages.

Hello Ecrane3,

I think you are right to say that I'll have a hard time convincing skeptics - took me all of two seasons (2 years!) for my friends to come round to experimenting with my idea in their own garden and now of course they are hooked. I must say that it's certainly not so 'sealed' that nothing gets in - it's good enough for me to never have had to use any pesticide and the odd bug I do see is simply dealt with - I squash it and that's that. Light and air? No problem. There is, believe it or not, technology in netting and a good deal of what's good for the plants is circulated freely.

There are other advantages. With the same connectors, one can set up almost instantly, tents, wigwams, sun-shelters etc. and some very beautiful, crazy sculptures/structures too have been built by some children of friends who visited.

Every year in the UK, about 50,000 sets of this flawed caging system are sold. They range in price from £12 - £14 for the connectors and then, depending on the size of the cage, aluminium rods cost from £16 - £36. I've done some research into manufacturing and retailing costs and I am sorely tempted. I need someone to tell me to "GO FOR IT!!!"

You should do your homework and then tell yourself to go for it, only you can decide if it's the right thing for you to do or not. If it requires very little up front investment, then feel free not to do the homework and just give it a shot, but if it's going to require your life savings to get the business off the ground, then you need to do your due diligence to make sure you don't lose your money.

By the way, I believe you about netting letting light and air in, I'm just skeptical of how it could be loose enough to do that but still keep out insects, only way you're going to keep aphids out is by putting a solid plastic shell over your plants. Personally I think think the fact that you didn't have many insect issues is caused by factors other than your netting, but there's really no need to debate that here since the only way I would ever buy netting of any sort is if you find a way to make it invisible! LOL

I sure have a lot of homework to do! It's been really fun so far, mucking about with refining my prototype - kept me out of trouble too. The netting by the way, is anchored down fairly snug, never loose and never flaps about in the wind. Perhaps that's why you don't like the look of netted cages? Mine always look very handsome and tidy. "LOL" - what's that?

No, the flapping in the wind isn't it, I want to look at my garden and see the plants, not the stuff around the plants. I don't care how neat and tidy the cages are, I would hate the look of them in the garden. And I have no need for them either, if I had big problems and this would solve them then maybe I could get past the look, but they honestly wouldn't do anything for me so I have no reason to consider them.

LOL is laughing out loud.

Hi ecrane,

ditto!