I wouldn't waste money on tulle, when you can buy row cover. The tulle will probably break down in the sun as it is not UV resistant. Agribon 19 is a really good product. If you take care of it, it will last several seasons. There are different weights. That is just my two cents.

Here is a link that might be useful: Article about Row Cover

I seem to hear differing opinions on the benefit of row covers. I've heard that some of them don't let much in the way of rain or moisture penetrate through the small holes, and that they seem to accumulate more dirt than tulle.

I really don't need the tulle for more than to deter squirrels from burying their nuts in my dirt, so spending a lot on row covers doesn't seem like an expense I want to put much money towards, so even though the tulle isn't cheap, it's still much cheaper than the covers, and won't be used for terribly long.

My wife uses a non-woven garden cover to keep the bunnies from chewing up bean and chard seedlings. It only takes two weeks for the seedlings to get large enough so they are not so attractive to the rabbits. This material is more or less white in color, I think we have about 20 square feet of it. We purchased it so long ago I don't remember the price. I think it was cheap.

I have been using it for a year now. I currently am growing spinach and lettuce under Agribon 19. I water it through the fabric and it is keeping out the bugs. Are you using in over the plants or just on the ground?

I'll be using it over the plants. Right now I have a large piece over some small lettuce and over an area that was just planted. I'm not sure how long the squirrels will be a problem, since it seems that they left everything alone all summer, and are just now starting to wreak havoc, but I really only need it to stop them from digging, at this point in time. When the weather warms again, I'll need something that'll keep the cabbage moths from laying, rather than going the BT route, but I don't plan on having the tulle up all winter long.

Granted, that's just what I'm thinking will happen at this point in time. I've never tried to grow anything in winter, and I don't know what sorts of pests show their faces in the cooler weather, so I may need to keep them up for longer than I anticipated. I have it worked out with pvc hoops and rebar, should the need arise, but $80 for the Agribon vs. under $40 for 50 yards of tulle... it just seems like I'm not going to need anything "heavy duty".

I guess I still just kind of need to know if the darker color is going to be an issue, or if white would be the way to go to maximize the amount of sunlight the plants will be getting during the shorter fall days. I imagine the darker color will act almost like shade cloth, but it being tulle with tons of small holes and thin, thin fibers, I'm not really sure.

Fabric exposed to sunlight will last longer if it is white. More sunlight is reflected away from lighter colors. That's why sails are usually white.

I am not sure where you are seeing Agribon for $80. 50 yards of tulle is 150 feet. How wide is it? 3 feet? Here is 9 feet 10 inches wide by 250 feet long for $45. That is more than the tulle, but it is also more material.

I would also think that the added heat factor would really help your plants. I am not sure where you are growing in the Bay Area, but I am sure you could benefit from some heat retention.

Is yours from a retail store? If so, which one? I was looking on ebay because I have absolutely no idea where to buy Agribon. I think it started at $29.99, but shipping was over $50. I hadn't heard of it until yesterday, when you posted about it, lol.

The tulle I'm looking into is 9' wide x 150' long. Plenty wide and long for me, but I definitely think wider and longer is better. ...err... yeah.

Google Agribon 15 or 19 and there are a ton of places that sell it.

Greenhouse Megastore.com

Morgan County Seeds

FarmTek

Johnnys

to name a few.

I think they have similar nylon mesh sold at HD or other nurseries. It prevents only deers and rabbits (maybe squirrels too) from munching on your plants. I have not used it myself bu have seen it. It is pretty much invisible until you get very close.
But tulle should also prevent buggs like flies and flees.
I wonder if you can buy tulle from fabric stores?!
I will check into HD and fabric store (like hobby lobby).

Fabric stores definitely carry tulle. I was looking into buying it from Jo-Ann Fabrics, but it's $2.69 for a yard of the 108" width. On ebay, I can get a 50 yard bolt of the same thing, in any color I need, for just under $50 shipped, but I also have a $20 gift card I need to use up, so that makes it around $30+tax for 108" x 150 ft.

It does look like I can get a roll of Agribon AG-15 for around $45 + shipping, but that shipping kind of kills it for me.

I have effectively used charcoal grey, fiberglass screen cloth as a shade for lettuce during the summer. So it probably depends on what you're growing under the net. (I grew up in CT in the 50s when the major crop was shade tobacco. The gauze covering the tobacco was white and very hot to work under.) I suspended the screen cloth on stakes above the lettuce and it produced all summer without the usual bolting. I'm pretty sure it would not work as well with eggplant which I cover with "Remay" like row cover to get them past the flea beetle blues. Also use the same row cover, flat on newly seeded beds to keep birds out and moisture in. Get highly increased germination. A couple of different weights of row cover are offered (mostly mail order, few garden stores seem to carry it). The very light weight types don't hold up as well as the heavier ones.

When in Phoenix back in the 60s I found a remnant of Dacron mosquito netting and used as a a screening material over a lath house. I believe it effected appreciable benefit. I rather preferred it over sunscreen fabrics sold for this purpose.

Dacron lasted much longer in the sun than did other similar fabrics. I haven't seen Dacron in years. Perhaps the patent ran out and it is sold under some other name.

I used Hunter Green Tulle in the garden this year both as a row cover and a trellis cover (isolation of plants for seed saving/protection from SVB). I don't think the tulle blocked the light - the plants underneath grew very well. I really prefer the "breathability" (made up garden word) of tulle over traditional row covers. It definitely holds in less moisture. The squash plants with the tulle had much less powdery mildew that those covered with regular covers.

I like the look of the hunter green MUCH better than white. When I look out into the garden, I barely notice it. It has not degraded this year and seems pretty strong. The only trouble I had was with the white tulle. Mice/voles were under the row cover eating all my cowpeas. Either a cat or an owl landed on top of the row cover and split it in half. With traditional row covers, a predator would not be able to see the mice.

Bellatrix

Shoot. I wish I'd waited one day. I ordered white yesterday, and I think it's being shipped out today. I'm going to see if I can stop the guy, and have him send me the green instead. When I saw it in the store, I thought, oh... that'll look SO much better than white. You won't even be able to see it. But then I got to thinking about the dark color, and well, this thread was born. But since there are so many holes in it, and since you've said you used the hunter green and it worked great, that's enough of a recommendation for me. I hope he didn't send out the white this morning. :( It's the first time ever, that I've hoped an ebay shipment went out slower than promised. Lol.

Oh well. If the white comes, I guess maybe I can try selling it off on Craigslist or something, and then buy the green. I only paid around $33 shipped for 50 yards, and 30 yards from the fabric store with a 50% off coupon costs more than that, so maybe someone will want to snatch it up.

Thanks for the input, Bellatrix. It was exactly what I was hoping to hear! :D

I've used the Agribon floating row cover for years; since I buy it in bulk, it keeps the cost down. Spun-polyester fabric retains heat & moisture, so it is good for plants which thrive in those conditions. Peppers really do well, the ones I have covered (for seed saving) always ripen earlier & out-produce those grown in the open. I highly recommend Agribon for covering young squash plants, it has been 100% effective for me in preventing SVB infestation.

But not all veggies thrive in a humid environment - beans & tomatoes in particular. When I tried growing them under Agribon, they began to suffer from foliar diseases (which vanished when the cover was removed). For them, a more breathable fabric is best, either tulle, or the mosquito netting. Both are good for keeping out pests or insects, but have poor heat retention. Of the two, mosquito netting is the more durable.

If you live in the Bay Area & plan a winter garden, you might want some heat retention... but in Summer, a darker, more breathable fabric (as a sun screen) would be preferable.

Should you still be interested in Agribon, you might want to check out Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply. They are located fairly close to you in Grass Valley, CA, so shipping shouldn't be cost prohibitive. You can get it as cheap as $20.00 for a 83" X 50' length.

Here is a link that might be useful: Peaceful Valley / row covers

I went to HOBBY LOBBY crafts store. They also sell fabrics.
They sure have all kinds of tulle, width, color,mesh size.

I picked some white one, 72" wide, mesh size about 1/16th of an inch, at $1.19/linear yard. That is 60Cents per square yard. not bad. I am going to use this primarily to deter rabbits.
Next spring I will get finer grade to protect things like eggplant seedlings from fleas/flea beetle .
What I got is nylon, almost transparent. So it will not absorb heat from sunlight and hopefully will last longer.
Actually you can cover vegetables that do not need pollinators, and/or you do not want them to grow seeds, all year round and keep the birds, bugs, etc away. Good stuff.

That's a good price for the 72". I went with the 108" because I wanted to be able to drape it over my hoops with room to be anchored to the ground without needing to sew anything. Thankfully, I caught the ebay seller in time, and he'll be sending me the hunter green. I suppose if I find that it, for some reason, doesn't work out, I can go with white later on down the line. I do really like the idea of how the green should blend in though. When I looked at it at the fabric store, I kept thinking how much less conspicuous it'd be. Fingers crossed that it all works out. It's all a matter of trial and error here at my house.

I got a bolt of tulle on amazon earlier for $14 and free shipping. The bolt size was 1.5yds x 40yds. I have a high fence all around the area where I grow my veggies with a hill that receives brutal sun all day long. If my measurements are right it's just enough fabric to make a cover to stretch from one side of the fence to the other to cover a space of 30ft x 6ft with maybe a little to spare. I just need a little bit of shade for my poor zucchinis. If it doesn't work out hey it was only $14. Growing veggies in the high desert is a pain.

In the high desert you probably need shade cloth this time of year, to cut down the sun exposure.

I might suggest folks consider Proteknet. I used it to cover my bean towers and keep the Japanese Beetles and Mexican Bean Beetles off the plants. It comes in a wide roll, has a stretch nylon consistency, doesn't tear, and lets water and light through.I initially used bags of compost to hold down the netting but that doesn't even seem to be needed. The material is heavy and doesn't blow around at all. The stretchiness allows the bean vines to grow over the top of the tower without issues.

I got tired of hand picking 100's of Japanese beetles off the plants every day. I'm really sold on this product after using agribon and other similar products unsuccessfully before. The agribon just tear too easily and blows around.

The downside is that proteknet is expensive.

Scott

There is a video on Youtube that shows both white and green being used

Wow, this is old. The question was never answered. Here's the answer. The fraction of light that is directly transmitted by fabric is the fractional area that is holes. Tulle has lots and lots of holes, so it doesn't block a lot of light. Black tulle and white tulle ought to have the same fractional area of holes, so the amount of light that they block directly should be the same. As to the light that IS blocked, black tulle absorbs that light, and so it gets warm. White tulle reflects and diffuses that light. That is, the color of the tulle is about what happens to the light that is blocked. It is true that as white tulle diffuses the light that is blocked, some of the light that doesn't go through the holes is thrown backward, and some forward, So white tulle may allow a little more light to pass. Probably not a big deal. But having a warm and maybe even hot blanket sitting on plants is probably not ideal, so I'd stay away from the black stuff.

Very late to this conversation (2023) but I just want to add while poly and nylon type row covers were extolled over the years for being light, working as an alternative to insect sprays, providing a little seasonal frost protection, and being affordable (and almost the only thing you can find in garden centers or online) ---- there is now a large concern that plastics (poly/nylon/etc) shed microplastics which are getting into the food chain and are even detectable in babies!! I am looking for silk or other natural fabric like some tulle (many of which now incorporate plastics for stenght and flexability). So far it has been a frustrating search. I have taken a No Plastics position on garden equipment....I hope you will join me. One example is using jute netting instead of plastic for peas, beans, etc. Please don't use plastic based row covers or low tunnel covering.

Just FYI, microplastic contamination is indeed an issue, but transmission is largely airborne. So not using plastic in your garden sure isn't going to keep microplastics out of your garden. It's airborne dust. You find plenty of microplastics in remote environments where there has never been anyone shedding plastic. Plastics of all kinds, even "biodegradable plastics" that end up in landfills eventually degrade into microplastics that then get blown around. You'd do a better job keeping microplastics out of the environment if you just didn't use any plastics for anything, and most people use LOTS more plastic for things other than gardening, so preventing microplastic contamination by keeping plastics out of the garden is not particularly effective.

Well, I disagree with you on one point. Yes, microplastics are airborne, ag film and other plastics on soil also shed microplastics which are absorbed by plants and end up in the food chain. Babies have it. Here is just one scientific study....there are many more that confirm plastics do indeed shed microplastics into soil. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31767311/ Sure, I won't eliminate the risk of microplastics in my little garden, but if 100,000 people stop using it, that would make a difference! At least I am not contributing to the problem....and it is one the severity of consequences are still unknown. It is disconcerting to find it in the food chain in grains, vegetables, fish, meats, and even mothers' milk. So while a large concern is airborne microplastics, I choose to not contribute to either air or soil microplastic pollution, which is very real.

Not sure what you're disagreeing with. If you don't use plastics in your garden, you've made an effort to avoid spreading microplastics. I have no argument with that. But in your non-garden life, if you use plastic bags, plastic utensils, plastic containers, plastic wrappings, plastic tarps, plastic fabrics, etc. etc., the garden effort isn't going to make a big difference in the amount of microplastics you put into the environment, and you ARE very much still contributing to the problem. On the other hand, if you can tell me that you indeed don't use ANY plastics, I guess avoiding the small amount of plastic that would come from your garden could be considered admirable. But I'd find that quite surprising. I'm not sure it's possible to live these days without using any plastic. Much of what you get in stores is packaged in some plastic, or plastic-lined paper, and that gets sent to the landfill.

Considering where microplastics actually come from, if a million people stopped using plastic in their garden, it wouldn't make any difference at all.

I cannot control what others do or don't do in their gardens; just what I choose to do. Yes, plastics are currently endemic. I am trying to reduce their use in gardens AND in my personal life. Metal instead of plastic tent stakes. Paper instead of plastic party cups/glasses, I buy milk in waxed cartons instead of plastic jugs. I try to buy 100% vegetation clothing (silk/cotton/wool/hemp) which is difficult....almost all clothing has some type of plastic. I use paper bags at the grocery store. I quit using plastic bags (even so called biodegradeable ones) in trash cans. So, at least I am making an effort. If everyone would do just a little bit, it could have a big influence, but if everyone says "Oh well, can't live without the stuff" and shrugs is off, our decedents will pay the price. At least I am trying. I am not saying we can live without plastic, but adding to the problem by using it in a family or hobby garden just doesn't make sense.

More power to you. But I have to suspect that the manufacture of many non-plastic items makes use of plastic in one way or another. My supermarket gets their paper bags in plastic wrapping. Why? To keep them dry. Of course, most food these days is polluted with microplastics. It is certainly frustrating, that 9oz cups, that I use for seed starting, are almost impossible to find in paper these days, but rather just in plastic or foam.

Getting off-topic here, but I will add that you can certainly get biodegradable tulle. I suspect that it won't last very long in the garden, however.

I used tulle to protect a newly-planted cherry tree from Japanese beetles. Worked like a charm and was inexpensive. Wouldn't you know as soon as the threat of JBs passed, I took the tulle off and the deer nailed the poor tree. Sigh... (DH didn't put the fencing up high enough so they were able to reach it)

Let me just add that, with regard to plastic pollution, one square meter of nylon tulle weighs about 0.15 ounces, and it lasts for a few years. One half-gallon plastic milk jug weight about 2 ounces, and one is done with it in a week or less. So tulle is fabulously low in plastic content, and the impact of it on microplastic contamination is very very minor. Be environment-friendly and avoid the big plastic items. But tulle? No way.

In answer to the original 13-year old question, my response 9 months ago was pretty accurate, but some interesting quantitative perspectives come from microscope pictures of tulle. See https://berlinembroidery.com/product/fabric-tulle-net/

What's interesting about these photos is that it appears that polyester tulle has VERY thin threads, and blocks very little light. Maybe 10%. Cotton tulle appears a little thicker, and might be blocking 30% or so. Polyester is not degraded much by UV, and is pretty immune to bacterial degradation. So polyester, rather than cotton, is probably more appropriate to garden applications. But one should be careful. You can also get nylon and rayon tulle, and while those are also pretty immune to bacterial degradation and probably don't block much light, they are strongly damaged by UV. I note that a lot of tulle at Joann's is nylon, but I see a lot of polyester tulle available at Amazon. The color doesn't matter in the least.

Why would heat waves in the 90s be hard on tomatoes? They like it hot. Drought no, but heat yes (to a point). It gets in the high 80s-90s routinely now where I am, doesn't bother the tomatoes a bit. The light isn't as strong in northern latitudes, so I can't see where the tulle would offer any benefit there, either -- the more sunlight the better. If they're kept well-watered, they can take it. IDK about Texas and such, but in northern zones tulle-ing tomatoes to protect them from light isn't necessary. (I'm not talking about transplants here).

For insect protection, tulle is a great solution and it's cheap.

Pretty simple. When temperatures get high, and the nightime temperatures aren't a lot cooler, tomatoes won't fertilize. The pollen gets sticky. Fruit won't set if nightime temperatures don't get below about 75F. My tomato season is over in late June for that reason. You can water all you want, and get foliage up the wazoo, but you won't get any tomatoes. As noted below, tulle won't really offer significant shade, in any case. Also, shade won't lower the air temperature.

^^ We just don't get that hot up here in more northerly latitudes, it's unusual if it doesn't cool down, low 70s is usually the warmest overnight. Totally different than where you are down in TX.

ETA: But I think we agree on the tulle not really offering any benefit to the tomatoes.