Brassica cage

Many of you will be familiar with the following type of brassica defence, using scafolding fabric and blue alkethene piping, which involves pusing half hoops of pipe into the ground and draping scaffold netting over the hoops...thereby protecting the plants inside from pigeons and cabbage white butterflies.



A couple of years ago, I made some more permanant structures by fixing both the hoops and fabric to a wooden frame so they could be moved around easier and allow easier access for weeding. But there is still a flaw or two in this too.



1. The tunnels are quite narrow, and any vegetation from the plants that touch the fabric can be a target for the cabbage white as they can still lay their eggs through it, even though they cannot get in.

2. The fabric has a line of holes in it which the scaffolders would normally use to tie the fabric to the scaffold. Last year I saw a cabbage white crawl through this, there was no damage as I chased it out straight away...but the oppurtunity is there.



So this year I have made a Brassica cage to protect our veggies.

I still had a lot of the scaffold fabric from the initial roll I bought and I also managed to recycle a lot of old roof batons when our local hospital had its roof renewed. So I used the fabric in between the lines of holes, stretched and stapled over panels made from the tile batons. I then scewed three panels to four corner posts, the fourth side is held in place by way of a turn buckle, the roof panels just sit on top, this way I have easy access for weeding, planting and harvesting. Watering is easily done through the fabric.











I could have made it taller and had it as a walk in frame but it would be dodgy as our site can get a lot of high winds. The frame is 13 x 13 foot and 3.5 foot tall, and can be dissassembled easily at the end of the season and stored away.





Steve...

 

Very smart job

 

I don't...yet!

Still so much to be done before any kind of smugness can occur..

2 x fruit cages to build..
Another tunnel to erect (3rd one)..
2 tunnels to re-cover and make taller..
Around 500ft of pathway to re-lay..
Chicken coup and run to build....

That's just the major stuff before next Spring...

Smug...no...happy...yes!

Steve...

 

I'm not a closer-finisher ... I'd be starting the new projects now

 

They look great much better than my ram shackle affairs and as you say my leaves are now up against the mesh. Though I have since put bamboo on the inside edges with bottles on top to try and give a bit of clearance

 

Do you have 3M wide debris netting on your "tunnel". Assuming that your bed "width" is 4' that should give you clearance of 3' - which is touch & go if you grow some good strong Brassicas ... but as soon the butterflies have gone it would be better to switch to a wider bird net - that will let the snow through in Winter, whereas debris netting will collapse.

 

Mine is 2 metre and as you say as soon as the butter flies are done I will be redoing it all with just bird protection in mind. Not too worried about the snow as we don't seem to get much if any and that tends to be in march not sure if my sprouting broccoli will be done by then not grown it since a kid and it is my pride and joy looking really healthy at the moment. I don't have bird netting so was just planning to raise the debris netting higher off the ground which will leave gaps but I will think of some to stop pigeons sneaking under