Plastic-free crop protection

We have all grown so used to our cloche tunnels and domes, fleece, netting, weed-suppressing membranes, weed sprays, bug potions, little plastic cold frames and greenhouses. It seemed like a tall order to find substitutes for them all. But lo, dear green-fingered reader, I think we’ve done it - almost.

WEED-SUPPRESSING MEMBRANES AND FABRICS

Black woven landscaping fabric just doesn’t go away; you may have noticed this when stray fibres escape and can be found fluttering on a fence wire, years after you laid the stuff. Made typically from polypropylene, which is manufactured from propene, a by-product of fossil fuel extraction, these geotextiles are designed to suppress weeds by blocking light but are permeable to allow gases and liquids to pass through them. They are designed