|
Posted by David Hare-Scott on January 21, 2010, 3:49 pm
If you were Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
FarmI wrote:
> I've been working on building a Fruit Cage for months now with a
> great deal of help from the under-gardener. I think we started this
> project in early Spring.
>
> It's coming along but I don't know if I'd have ever started if I'd
> realised what a big job it was going to be.
>
> Our veg garden is on the north western side of the house (it'd be
> about a fifth of an acre I guess). It has a 6 ft high fence along
> the western edge with shade cloth all along it to stop the westerly
> winds. Outside this fence is a windbreak of wattles and smaller
> native shrubs.
> One day I was in the veg garden and wondering whether I should plant
> more trees shrubs on the northernmost end of the windbreak when I
> suddenly realised that there was a perfect spot for me to punch out
> the fence and build a big fruit cage out into the windbreak area as
> there really was no more space in the veg garden for one.
>
> Great idea, but then came the work. Pull down the shade cloth on
> that end of the veg garden, drop the fence. Think about the
> structure and realise that if we put in a long post to support the
> remainder of the fence, we could use this as the corner post of the
> fruit cage. Put in 5 more posts. Put up sheep wire on western and
> southern side of fruit cage, cover that with shadecloth. Put fence
> back up and put shadecloth back on fence.
> Start putting timber edging in for beds starting on southern side -
> do some soil improvement on that side. Beds will be in a 'U' shape.
> Realise that I have a Sultana grap in a pot that has been in the pot
> too long. Put it in the fruit cage on the southern wall and start
> training it up the wires. Realise that I need to stop snakes/lizards
> getting in around edges behind where the timber sits to hold the soil
> in the beds - pefect spot for snakes and lizards to get in. Stuff
> cheap black bird netting at bottom of sheepwire/shadecloth and top it
> with large pine chunk mulch from another part of the garden weaving
> birdnetting over and through mulch. Mulch path with fine wood chips.
>
> At this stage I still have 2 sides of the 'U' beds to finish and the
> northern wall is till as bare as a bobies bottom but for for that
> side I've bought a roll of 6ft high bird netting. To think how many
> berries I coul dhave bought for the cost of that wire - not sensible
> but then what gardener ever is sensible.
>
> We need to put something across the top to support a roof (steel/2
> inch plastic? Yet to be decided.) Roof will probably be of white
> bird netting. Then I have to get a door shape welded up so that it
> fits closely into a door frame (again to exclude snakes) and cover
> that with bird wire. So much to do still....... Perhaps it will be
> ready by next spring Sigh!
What specifically are you excluding? I have some toothy beastie eating my
ripe tomatos right now. I think it is rats because there are holes with
scrabble marks in the garden but cannot tell for sure. I have put down
ratsak but the chomping continues and no corpses appear. I don't think it
is birds as we never see any birds on the bushes and the attack is always
from the underside. What else could it be? Any ideas?
David
| 
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML site map