Any old (sorry!) gardeners here?

There was netting made from string! Chicken wire... old net curtains...

I see being old as an advantage and a virtue.

Chemicals. Everything was sprayed, and there was a poison for everything.

I think any form of woven cloth would be too thick , it will not let in enough light and when it gets wet will either collapse ont to the plants or drip . Also the lack of air circulation is lovely for mould and fungus 🍄 .

i suppose you could look at skirt netting, the sort used for petticoats under dance dresses. You will need some sort of hoop to keep it off the plants, though

The late and great Geoff Hamilton strongly suggested companion planting which is what I do ( pushing 60)
I plant nasturtiums near to my beans as well as old fashioned marigolds.
These attract beasts away from my beans.

Many older gardeners and gardeners before them knew that if you want ten bean plants to survive, plant twenty and some of them will succumb to beasts and leave the stronger plants alone.

Learning facts like making sure that you sow carrot seeds thinly to avoid thinning them out once they've sprouted is important. Pulling out carrot seedlings immediately attracts carrot fly as these beasts can smell them from miles away.

Basically, plant many more than you need, which doesn't help people with most modern gardeners.

Horticultural fleece has been around a long while. It breathes, it doesn't seem to rot and is very much reusable.

Charity shops might be a good place to find old net curtains . They're usually made from nylon.
Cotton lace would rot.

You can still buy window nets.

Am not surprised chemicals were widely used, but it can surely only be a couple of generations ago that gardening was done without much chemical use? You’d have to go back a lot longer than that. Things like nicotine and copper sulphate (Bordeaux mixture) were used in Victorian times, and the use of substances on plants is probably as old as the use of medicines. It was post war that more “effective” chemicals came into wide use, and were used preventively. Gardening books of the 50s were full of cycles of chemical use - spray with A in spring to prevent X,then every 4 weeks with B to control Y, and in early autumn with C to prevent overwintering Z . Simultaneously there was a push to regular application of synthetic fertilisers, to the detriment of our rivers which are being killed off by too high nitrate levels from the run off. This approach is still seen in the “weed and feed” approach to lawns. All this was mainstream gardening, pushed by for example the RHS and Gardeners Question Time. Companion planting, organic gardening etc was regarded as “woo”.

I’m in my 70s, and my parents’ generation were enthusiastic chemical users. Remember it was as early as 1962 that Rachel Carson produced Silent Spring.

When I got blackfly on my spuds Imde a very strong garlic spray and used that; to my astonishment it worked! It does have to be strong as dd's tried it since and it's not worked so well. I think I used about half a dozen full bulbs in a pint of water, boil for ages, strain.

I know its not what you're asking, but I have two big sheets of micromesh which I use over strawberries in season and brassicas. They have been outdoors at my allotment 365 days a year for the best part of ten years and have not deteriorated at all. Now I know that's not great in terms of their eventual disposal. But it means they are the only crop protection I have ever needed. I don't use chemicals at all.

My husband is 71 and his father and grandfather had a large vegetable garden, to supply their shop. The kids were bribed with sweeties to collect caterpillars and squish aphids (although aphids aren't much of a problem here, cabbage white butterflies can be).
They couldn't afford sprays and getting anything delivered to the further reaches of the Highlands was even worse then than it is now, so they just had to do what they could with what they had. And they had lots of kids!

Possibly there were more birds around to eat caterpillars etc. Cats not so popular.
Strawberry netting was made of fine rope/string/maybe sisal. Perhaps that also points to birds being more prolific.

Rhubarb leaf spray would be effective. This wasn't permitted under EU law though.

There are some wonderful old programs about Gardening in Victorian and early 1900s times with Peter Thoday and Harry Dodson. They taught me a lot including how to use kittens as pest control :)

Not sure if the link will work...

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5mpc6t

Companion planting, green fertiliser like comfrey, lots of homemade garden compost, going out in the evening slug/snail hunting, putting water out to encourage birds, it all helps.

The blue tits did a cracking job on the aphids on the roses a month or so ago.

EU didn't permit pesticides that haven't gone through the testing process. No company is going to pay for the testing process as there is no profit in it for them.

My Grandfather ( in Scotland) protected his prize Chrysanthemums from earwigs with paper bags over the blooms!
He was not amused when my mother drew faces on them!

I've read that putting comfrey leaves down next to a garden bed will encourage all the snails and slugs to the leaves. I haven't had enough comfrey leaves yet to test it though.

yes a lot of fertilizers and pest control methods were deadly, led to cancer and an early demise.
my grandmother spent time in her garden and weeded. the things she grew were crops that were simple and no fail (gooseberry and currant bushes, apple trees, raspberries, rhubarb, veggies such as peas and beans that were hardy).
i actually think heritage seed varieties although not as "pretty" were probably more robust. i'm going to try this next year.
Three Sisters (agriculture) - Wikipedia

Let us know how you get on. I’m not sure how well this adapts to the UK, it’s N American in origin so lack of sunshine is not a problem there.

Good luck with the Three Sisters, @greenspaces4peace ! Let me know how they work out.

I may have picked the wrong cultivars for the climate in Northern England, because my beans grew quickly and my sweetcorn too slowly to be a viable support. I went back to crop rotation after a couple of years.

Where I lived in America it worked much better, the corn grew really fast - all that sunshine I think.

So if you find one that is successful I’d like to know and give it another try.

It’s very noticeable, if you visit (say) National Trust gardens, that Victorian and Edwardian potting sheds are full of contraptions for spraying fruit and vegetables. Otherwise, as has been said, it was about vigilance and picking off pests by hand, which would have been easy to do on the grand estates before the First World War, when labour was plentiful and cheap.

My nan used to send us kids out with a piece of net curtain and a jam jar to catch cabbage white butterflies. I think she then frowned then which is awful but at least not involving chemicals.

I've seen white decoy butterflies sold on thin metal stems. Do they work?