Fruit Cage

[FarmI]

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.

Fran

[brooklyn1]

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.

[Bill who putters]

Here is an image looks small and expensive.

More images

Bill

[Billy]

These look like they could be built with PVC (or what ever is UV proof). Drilling holes and using cotter keys to hold it together would make them easy to disassemble (although setting the posts in cement would be a good idea).

[David Hare-Scott]

I cover my strawberries with weldmesh. I have sections of about 3m long

1200mm wide of 12mm mesh that are rolled longways into a section of a cylinder. They are stiff enough to stand up on the edges without frames and are easy to lift off and replace. Being galvanised and much stronger than bird or chook netting it lasts indefinitely: unless a horse walks on it.

David