Thread: Brassica cage?
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Old 06-04-2004, 10:49 PM
Rod
 
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Default Brassica cage?

On Sun, 4 Apr 2004 20:57:35 +0100, Chris ] wrote:

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?


Ours is a variation of Mary's. The wire netting covered frames are
made from a 6"x1" bottom board and 3 lengths of 2"x1". These frames
are 10ft long x 6ft High. Covered with 1.8metre wire netting 50mm mesh
for pheasants/pigeons or 25mm mesh for fruit cage sides. These are
fixed with cable ties to a frame of 3/4"nb galvanised water pipe.
Uprights at 10ft square. Horizontal top bars fixed to uprights with
'KeeKlamps' Top cover is 2"mesh pheasant netting from Knowle Nets of
Bridport. For the fruit section the top net is heavy duty bird netting
from LBS. We deliberately don't exclude small birds and insects (wasps
esp) from the veg cages. We need all the predators we can get working
on those caterpillars. Another advantage of the larger mesh is that
all but the wettest snow drops through it and the wet stuff can easily
be shaken off. Small gauge top netting can be destroyed (and the
supports with it) by heavy wet snow when your overwintering veg are at
their most vulnerable. We have 3 cages for rotation. We installed
these when the Estate ran a shoot here and the gardens were overrun by
pheasants. We even needed the cage over the spuds to stop the
pheasants kicking down the ridges and wrecking the crop. Unprotected
peas didn't last 5 mins and we had a hen pheasant lay a clutch of eggs
in the onion bed one year when I was working single handed pending a
replacement undergardener.

Rod

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