Crop protection

Now that the weather is improving and I've planted some crops out I have decided that it is time to build some more permanent crop protection. My plan is to build 2 fairly large moveable brassica cages from wood and scaffold debris netting, and build a hoop and debris netting cover for the salad raised bed.

As the local hardware store sells timber in 2.4m lengths and the allotment is around 5.5m wide I decided on making the cages 1.2m high, 2.4m long and 2m wide. You may ask why I didn't make them 1.2x2.4x2.4 and the easy answer is that I purchased 2m wide debris netting and thought that 2m wide made more sense. If I had realised at the time how much you have to stretch 2m wide debris netting to actually make it 2m wide I would probably have gone for 1.2x2.4x2.4 and doubled up the netting in places...

I transported all my tools and timber/netting to the allotment early one saturday morning in the car and walked back down with essential supplies (Cider.)

My father is a retired cabinet maker so I have picked up a lot of skills with timber so it didn't take long to build the frames and make sure that they were sturdy and square. In fact I would estimate that it took longer to attach the debris netting with my faithful staple gun.

Brassica cages under construction - more timber needed!

Brassica cages under construction - just one to net up

Brassica cages completed and in final position

Once the brassica cages were built and in place I got on with protecting the salad raised bed - I had approximately 6m of blue flexible water pipe laying around so I cut it in to three equal lengths, screwed it to the sides of the raised bed with decking screws and large washers then attached the debris netting to one side of the bed with stables, attached a piece of timber to the other end of the netting and hey presto I had a protected raised bed. 

Protected raised bed