It 'woodwork' better if it had a roof - the fruit cage post

This year we are determined to learn our lessons from last year. One major failing from last year: all our fruit got eaten by birds (or some other unidentified thief)

So yesterday we put Year Two: no-longer-newbies into action.

I got the bus up to the allotment while Andrew cycled to his parents' house to get the car. I felt like a true, die-hard gardener as I got to work in the greenhouse, listening to the radio, while the rain poured down outside. 

Andrew arrived soon after with a roof-rack full of wood, a saw, a spirit level and a hammer. Woodwork time.

We'd planned to build a walk-in fruit cage, but after chatting to Andrew's Uncle Paul at Christmas, we thought maybe a smaller, moveable one would be better. We had a look around at a few other fruit cages on other plots, and then set off for Homebase. The man at the checkout was slightly bemused by our purchases, and it took him a long time to find 'pond and fruit cage netting' on his till. He kept looking at the 'Chains' section until I told him it was a mesh, not a chain. Don't think he'd been working there long.

We came back to the allotment and Andrew got to to work with a saw, hammer and nails, while I did my best with the mesh and a staple gun. 

Then we put it all together to make this wonderful cage for our strawberries. Check out our awesome woodwork skills. We decided we'd make this cage just for the strawbs, and do something else for the raspberries and the gooseberry. I hope it works because last year we had a total of 1 raspberry and 0 gooseberries. Not a brilliant harvest. 

Yes we do realise it doesn't have a roof yet. We ran out of time and energy. Luckily there's no fruit for the birds to eat yet, so we've got a bit of time.