Brassica cage?

 This year pigeons have eaten all my spring cabbages and broccoli.

Belatedly I have chucked some netting over - and they are recovering.

Next year would it be feasible to make some kind of cage?
Maybe keep off butterflies too?

Cage would have to be movable for crop rotation
and accessible for weeding, harvesting.

Has anyone tried anything that works and is not too much trouble?
--
Chris

 

We have. Modular 'hurdles': mild steel framed chicken wired flat structures
which can be moved easily and don't take much room to store when not used.
They tie to each other with wire, string, baler twine, whatever's available.
They don't need to be absolutely rigid. They can be lifted and replaced
easily to access for harvesting, seeding etc. when we've had flighty hens
we've laid them across the vertical ones but mostly that's not necessary.

We use them to keep our hens off the tasty crops. Our plots are small, it's
an inner city garden, but pigeons don't find their way into them when the
hurdles are round them.

They don't stop butterflies though. You'd need very small mesh to prevent
any insect attention.

Mary

 Chris4/4/04 8:57 pmnospam@[127.0.0.1]FUyeSmEviGcAFw6c@[127.0.0.1]


In 'the old days', people had fruit cages to keep birds away from soft
fruits.  My outlaws grew sweet peas up the inside of theirs and all the
fruit in the middle.  Why should you not do that with a veg. cage?  The mesh
could be small enough to exclude everything, if that is what you want.
Indeed, the mesh could be the size of an American 'screen porch'.  I've
never really understood why we don't have those in UK - nothing, including a
political canvasser would get past that kind of mesh!  ;-)
Depending on your circumstances it could be on wheels or on long 'legs'
which would push into the ground by a foot or three and leave the cage on
top of the earth, doing its job; there could be many variations on this
theme.  
--

Sacha
(remove the weeds to email me)

 

You can get two grades of that screen - a green one with holes about
half a millimetre square, and a fine grey one with much smaller holes -
small enough to keep out mushroom fly.

Decent hardware shops keep them.

I think the green one is sold as greenhouse shade.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

 

I've tried several variations on a theme - and they all work (
depending on the type of mesh you use ).
What I would say is  if you make such a cage, make it a good one - and
by good I mean something that isn't going to fall apart after one
season - preferably with some sort of hinged arrangement so's you can
simply lift or open the top/sides to weed or crop.

For brassicas, I'd go for 'enviromesh' - look for the stuff that's
sold for preventing carrot and onion root fly. It's quite sturdy,
though I don't believe it offers the frost protection that the finer
mesh does.

If you can find metal mesh, go for it - but I'd imagine it's pretty
pricey.

Regards,



--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
http://www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{who is at}shwoodwindcouk