I'm going to build my first cabbage cage...Monday, 12th August, 2013,.

Here is my vegetable patch and, what you perhaps cannot spot, are the cabbage whites dive-bombing my plants and determined to do their stuff everywhere!

Plants and netting in place!

As you can see, the netting is low down, if not actually touching my baby plants, which means the butterflies are also able to connect to their favoured green-leaf!

Now I, had no idea how to raise my netting, but was bothered by the prospect of munched leaves and no cabbage for human consumption and the prospect of building, or buying a pre-made cover, which was daunting and probably expensive.

And at this stage,  I had no ground cover, for I'd not realised it would be needed.  However, I had sticks and netting in place, so I just needed to work out how to raise the height of my netting which, eventually, I realised could be achieved by top and bottom tying stick to netting, stretching the netting over and across a row of plants, and then tying the netting to the 2nd and opposite row of sticks, thence to third and fourth row of sticks, about my plants.

Then a problem, not sufficient sticks to be found, so I purchased three sets of pine hoops, and positioned them to fit my needs, and tying up the netting as I connected my series of sticks, hoops and netting, making sure no gaps were left open.

It was a long job, made more tricky by not having any ground-cover in place beforehand, plus my staggered planting plan, so no easy to-get-at long strips of open soil.  I laid the various lengths and half-lengths of black ground-cover, put in little strips as necessary, and made cuts and holes, where need, for the plants to grow up through.  Bricks and large stones were used to keep my ground-cover in place.

A trifle untidy, perhaps???

I took  tea-break at this stage to consider how I was doing?  The ends of my cage were not properly sealed and I'd left a few netting gaps over the hoops.  A butterfly had got in and become enmeshed but I thought he would free himself by folding over one of his wings and making his escape.  As this was not happening, I opened up a fold of the netting, and he flew away.  This was a useful action for both of us - his escape and for me to spot the flaws in my overall plan!

I added extra string tie-ups to the netting over the hoops and to the sides of my cage, plus more large stones and bricks to the outer edges, to keep everything in place.  Overall, it's a pretty fragile structure, and it may not last well but at least no more cabbage whites entered my covered space that afternoon, so my structure just might work?

It's possible I'll have to raise the height of my cage as my plants grow, but only time will tell!

Here's another photo-shot of my cabbage cage, which I have to admit, took a great deal of stretching, bending, and sore knees - plus huffing and puffing, to get it built?

My first garden cage!!!

My cage cost approximately £25.00 to build, which I think is quite cheap - provided it doesn't require too much in the way of re-structuring and patching-up!

This evening, after a long day in the garden, we ate a very simple store-cupboard supper  of corned beef, poached eggs, Petit pois and baked beans - dee-licious!

Toodle oo

Daisy