[growth] dither dither dither
Feb. 14th, 2020 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettThis year's infrastructure project, Finishing The Raised Beds aside, was pencilled in as A Fruit Cage. The idea being that I am potentially interested in eating (and turning into sorbet and jam and cake and...) the various Ribes that preexisted on the plot, being as best I can tell redcurrants, jostaberries, and a red dessert gooseberry. However, frustratingly but predictably, if they're not netted in they (and the cherries) get to almost-ripe-enough-to-eat and then Mysteriously Vanish, in a fashion that definitely has nothing to do with the local population of parakeets.
Anyway.
The option my mother goes for here is plastic (UV-stabilised) netting, put over the bushes once the fruit has had a chance to set and weighed down along the lower edge. This needs crawling under for harvest, and the bushes grow through it, and it's a right faff to disentangle again post-harvest for storage (which you want to do because even though it's UV-stabilised, getting it off the growing thing and out of the sunlight as soon as possible extends its lifespan significantly). Also, it's plastic. Also, birds sometimes get caught in them anyway.
It seems more than a little extravagant to therefore go for An Actual Fruit Cage, like, a framework and structure that gets covered, and especially it seems extravagant to decide I'm going to buy something semi-permanent and made of metal instead of cobbling something together out of foraged bamboo and empty milk-bottles and More Plastic Netting, but actually I'd really like to avoid the plastic so far as possible and also the idea of the upkeep on the bamboo structure just sort of leaves me pre-emptively exhausted.
For bonus points, the way the bushes are laid out means I have the option of (1) multiple small cages, or (2) something that's about 16'x16', which is... not small, exactly.
So. Two Wests sell a prefab/kit "heavy duty" fruit cage... complete with plastic netting, and not complete with door. (Their less-heavy-duty cages come in sizes that aren't 16'x16', inconveniently, and are linked with plastic.) They also sell all the component parts, which I think (I haven't worked it out precisely) add up to slightly less if ordered separately than altogether. Which also gives me the option of buying galvanised chicken wire from Elsewhere to fit it with, this being Not Plastic and therefore decidedly tempting, even before one takes into account the part where the chicken humans have offered me a spare roll of the stuff.
It still works out as a ridiculous extravagance, of course, and on the one hand I shudder to think of the effective cost per kilo of berries, and on the other it's not like I'd ever actually buy redcurrants or gooseberries and it's not like it's even possible to buy jostaberries in most supermarkets. And I have a lot of money about to come in, and it would make me happy, so I'm trying to coax myself into it -- but goodness I am having a bunch of feelings about being able to Afford This.
Anyway.
The option my mother goes for here is plastic (UV-stabilised) netting, put over the bushes once the fruit has had a chance to set and weighed down along the lower edge. This needs crawling under for harvest, and the bushes grow through it, and it's a right faff to disentangle again post-harvest for storage (which you want to do because even though it's UV-stabilised, getting it off the growing thing and out of the sunlight as soon as possible extends its lifespan significantly). Also, it's plastic. Also, birds sometimes get caught in them anyway.
It seems more than a little extravagant to therefore go for An Actual Fruit Cage, like, a framework and structure that gets covered, and especially it seems extravagant to decide I'm going to buy something semi-permanent and made of metal instead of cobbling something together out of foraged bamboo and empty milk-bottles and More Plastic Netting, but actually I'd really like to avoid the plastic so far as possible and also the idea of the upkeep on the bamboo structure just sort of leaves me pre-emptively exhausted.
For bonus points, the way the bushes are laid out means I have the option of (1) multiple small cages, or (2) something that's about 16'x16', which is... not small, exactly.
So. Two Wests sell a prefab/kit "heavy duty" fruit cage... complete with plastic netting, and not complete with door. (Their less-heavy-duty cages come in sizes that aren't 16'x16', inconveniently, and are linked with plastic.) They also sell all the component parts, which I think (I haven't worked it out precisely) add up to slightly less if ordered separately than altogether. Which also gives me the option of buying galvanised chicken wire from Elsewhere to fit it with, this being Not Plastic and therefore decidedly tempting, even before one takes into account the part where the chicken humans have offered me a spare roll of the stuff.
It still works out as a ridiculous extravagance, of course, and on the one hand I shudder to think of the effective cost per kilo of berries, and on the other it's not like I'd ever actually buy redcurrants or gooseberries and it's not like it's even possible to buy jostaberries in most supermarkets. And I have a lot of money about to come in, and it would make me happy, so I'm trying to coax myself into it -- but goodness I am having a bunch of feelings about being able to Afford This.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-14 11:54 pm (UTC)I would even say it's likely to be worth shopping around a bit and getting something heftier, though I haven't exactly explored what's available yet.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-15 11:23 pm (UTC)(& today's post brought the letter with How Much Money the DWP is sending me, so.)
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-15 02:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-15 09:26 am (UTC)(it is ALWAYS the posts I don't check. Which is probably because the posts I don't check are the ones I make when I'm tired or in a hurry, but still.)