"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message
...
I've decided that I need to build a fruit cage to stop the Blue Tongued
Lizards eating my strawberries and the birds getting my raspberries.

I did a fairly major google and it seems that there are at least a
squillion Fruit Cages out there, BUT, they all of them seem to either be
supplied by Harrods or similar up market (and thus rather posh) British
garden suppliers or they are rough, spindly and quite tiny structures on
British allotment sites.

Neither of these options will not do in my situation as both would look
very out of place.

I plan to use treated pine poles at the corners and cover it with bird
netting and the dimensions would be roughly about 20 ft square (but with
one corner of it ending up 'pointy' and one side being about 25 ft long).

Has anyone seen any pics of a decent sized Fruit Cage in their wanders
round the Net and that would look at home on a farm where there will be
cattle in a paddock on one side, chooks in a big orchard run on another, a
20ft wide wind break on one side and a big veg garden on the other?

Looking for inspiration.


I built a similar contraption to keep the birds from my blueberries and
strawberries. Only instead of wodden poles I drove in 6' stell fence
posts, ran closeline all around at the tops and draped a fine mesh netting.
I never accounted for snow... figuring to leave it up all year was a
mistake, the snow wouldn't pass throught the netting and instead built up
until the weight collapsed the entire thing, fortunately my plants were not
damaged. And some of the smaller birds found ways to get inside anyway, but
then couldn't find their way out. I would think that lizards come in all
sizes, it would be impossible to keep the young ones out. Now I place
tomato cages over my blueberry bushes and drape each with netting, makes it
easeir to harvest the berries too. And at the end of the season I will
leave the cages but remove the netting... blueberry bushes grow slowly so
it'll be years before I need to figure a different method. I found growing
strawberries not worth the trouble, too much weeding and the berry season is
short, I can buy strawberries most of the summer for cheap, so those are now
gone. With blueberies there is no weeding, they're easy to harvest, and
they supply berries all summer. Strawberries stop producing after the third
year, blueberries produce more the older they get and they can easily
outlive a few generations.