[AllotmentAllen]

Hi Everyone,
For the past couple of seasons we've had a nightmare stopping the local wildlife eating up our fruit, it has become a real problem. We never used to suffer that badly in years past but I want to do something about it going forward. The two options I’m looking at are the small vegetable meshes and the larger fruit cages. Are the large fruit cages worth the investment, there’s quite a variety of cages, which ones are the best https://www.harrodhorticultural.com/fruit-cages-tcid15.html#?  I’m considering caging the entire allotment to save doing little buts here there and everywhere. None of the plots on our allotment site really use big fruit cages so I don’t know what’s best. Thanks in advance for your help everyone.
Allen

[ARPoet]

I bought a walk in Wonderwall, http://www.walk-inwonderwall.co.uk/ last year, after fighting a losing battle with flying pigs. It worked a treat, and is much warmer inside but is quite expensive.
I then bought a gage from 2 wests & Elliott and that was much cheaper.
A few weeks ago i bought, off ebay, a roll of blue water pipe to make hoops and some debris netting and made my own for about 60 quid.
I should say, that they are in my back garden as i gave up the lottie a few years ago.

[GrannieAnnie]

I've only got a couple of blackcurrant bushes, but I put canes in the ground around them, and cover them in the black netting from Wilko.  Much cheaper and it saves my blackcurrants from the pesky birdies!

Depends what sort of area you want to cover I suppose.  I did make a much bigger cage for my brassicas with green debris netting the other year! 

[AllotmentAllen]

Thank you for your quick replies !

[snowdrops]

Hi there, this year I was gifted an old 9m x3m gazebo that  the cover had ripped, with lots of help from hubby we turned it into a 6m x3m fruit cage, cost me about £50 for proper fruit cage netting, worked a treat, I picked more cherries than I could cope with😊, some are still in the freezer waiting to be cooked into pies over the winter. The 2 spare legs & extrapoles were utilised as braces & a doorway. The netting is fastened on with cable ties. I was also given an old tent & we turned that into a brassica cage.

[madcat]

We did similarly with an old frame tent and scaffolding net for the brassicas to protect from the  pigeons - we call it the cabbage marquee.  The frame for the fruit cage was made from roofing lathes and recycled fence posts,  with sides of chicken wire and again covered with scaffolding net.  The net is rolled back at the end of the season to let the birds in to clear up the pests and to stop the weight of leaves trapped on top ripping the netting.

I don't think you will get any argument here about the need to protect from nature!

[grinling]

When covering anything over winter bear in mind that snow is very heavy and can break supports. Smll rounded cloches on the ground fair better, but any flat roof cages still netted can break. Have the roof section removable or better still have a cage made from 5 sections and then join when needed.