Juneberrys

[guywhofishes]

guywhofishes - how do you keep your deer fences around the berries stable without fence posts? Large garden staples?

I used a bolt cutter to cut "T's" out of cattle panels left over from my tomato cage fest a few years back. The tees were placed as stakes at 1/3s around the perimeter on the ground. The fence isn't beefy so the deer will easily lean into and bend the current cages.... but the fact that my neighbors generally do not cage their plants makes our neighborhood deer fairly passive - they seem to move on if getting at the plant is at all difficult.

If they do get ornery and I find it necessary I will put a hot wire (electric fence) perimeter around the top of every cage - like they do for horse fencing. I hot-wired my wife's birdfeeders and it's quite effective. I am determined to win the deer battle - I take it as sort of a challenge.

The "goat fence" circles are visually kind of elegant... a pleasant surprise for us. IF I can keep Royce from crashing into them in hot pursuit of something, or keep deer off them, they should last until the dwarf canadian cherry trees and fruit bushes reach a state where I can afford some loss. Then I'll likely move the cages to new young plants.

If you're scratching your head about cutting the T's I can post pics if desired. The industrial duty tomato cages, by the way, were an unmitigated success.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/krn3hapj1l1h38v/tomato cages.pdf?dl=0

 

[Lycanthrope]

I did the same with cattle panels, One upgrade from how they are shown there that I did was to make each corner into a joint so they are foldable and cut the bottom wire off leaving spikes so it can be sunk into the ground 6", else the wind around here wants to blow them over. Also Ive found that triangle cages work as well for me as square ones and use less panel material.

 

[guywhofishes]

good work on the ground spikes lycan

we use the cages along walls and in raised beds - so they either get attached to walls or get stacked alongside each other with maybe a little velcro wrap here/there to create very strong standing structures (three cages long by two cages deep in a raised bed sort of thing)

those cage networks are so strong they actually allowed us to throw tarps across them in a moment's notice to prevent hail damage - they are almost tornado worthy when lashed into structures

we have lots of storage area along an out of the way cedar fence - so we stack them all up like crab pots on a crap boat over winter

 

[fullrut]

Forest River Hutterite Colony sells them in the summer. Can't remember if it's by the gallon or two gallon pail. I have some honey berries that are going on three years now. Saw some berries last year and the birds cleaned them out. By the look of Lycan's, mine must be getting too much shade. There about as big as his new ones.

 

[Zogman]

Yup the Forest River Colony is what a 71 year old with two bad knees have been using. No need walking all over picking a berry here and a berry there. They are actually reasonable on price.

 

[Lycanthrope]

Honeyberry started blooming about a week ago.
Carmine jewel Cherries are just hitting max flowers!