moved our beds

I am looking at your netting and wondering how you made it do what it is doing? It has boxed corners.

melanielundin wrote:I am looking at your netting and wondering how you made it do what it is doing? It has boxed corners.

I would guess it's hardware cloth... is that right SG?

Also, in the All New Square Foot Gardening book, there are photos on how to make a frame with chicken wire.

I am waiting for my book to arrive. Hope it does tell how to make as beautiful a cover as SG.

Hi there melanielundin, our covers are made of hardware cloth...the same stuff you use on the bottom of a rabbit cage. We made some of chicken wire, but they always caved in, and the frames looked "ugly" to us. These are free standing and will last a LONG time. We are really happy with them. You can water right through them and also see "what's going on" under them. I will try and take a couple of close up pics and post so you can see how we made them. They were easy once you get your "template" made. Feel free to message me if you have any specific questions God bless!!

OK..it's dark, but I went out and snapped a few pics. I'll try and explain and post pics too. The hardware cloth is  1 foot wider and longer than the area you want to cover. This allows you to bend 6" "sides". Make a 6" cut in the ends to allow an end to fold around, sort of like wrapping a present. You will make 2 cuts on each end and "fold" the ends. We clipped them together with "hog rings". We have some beds that are 4' wide, so made 2 covers for those beds, but MOST of our beds are 2' wide and 8' long, so a 3' wide and 9' long piece of hardware cloth works perfectly for ours.

Here are the pics. I hope I described it OK!!

SG, Excellent photos to show how they're made. Much nicer looking than chicken wire.

sanderson wrote:SG,  Excellent photos to show how they're made.  Much nicer looking than chicken wire.

Thank you sanderson. I like that they're free standing. We put shade film over the top and pin with clothes pins for protection to plants in the summer, easy peeezy!
We have small birds here that actually fit THROUGH the chicken wire! They devour the seedlings. I don't know why we have so many of them in our yard. Our neighbors don't have a problem, but we sure do, and these have really helped.
The hardware cloth is sort of pricey, but it's a one time investment really. We've had some of these for years, and they look just like the day we made them!
Happy new year everyone!!

I am so glad SG that your reply posted to my email. Wonderful clear pic's. My husband appreciated that. I just bought 16 bags of sfg soil. We will probably do beds like you have. Will work on finding out about seeds which looks like a popular subject right now. Thank you for going out in your garden in the dark, though my sister in law in Ramona says the weather is beautiful.

melanielundin wrote:I am so glad SG that your reply posted to my email. Wonderful clear pic's. My husband appreciated that. I just bought 16 bags of sfg soil. We will probably do beds like you have. Will work on finding out about seeds which looks like a popular subject right now. Thank you for going out in your garden in the dark, though my sister in law in Ramona says the weather is beautiful.

Oh, you are quite welcome. I know when I want to do something, I wanna do it "now" lol. Yes, we have beautiful weather most of the time here. Had a few nights of frost a few weeks ago, but now, it's been really nice for days! Little windy, but can't complain. Would REALLY like some rain tho! Please let me know if you need more pics or explanation, but it's pretty simple really, just make your sides as tall as you want, we used 6" side because that's how it worked out. Did you buy the pre made Mel's Mix or bags of compost etc?

Hi there, I was wondering if you ever got your covers made for your beds? If so how did they turn out?

thanks for sending me this way SG   some how I have missed this thread   

love the covers on your beds!! and    your garden is beautiful!

the hardware cloth is what hubby has been trying to find.....we want to use it for our chicken run and for some critter protection in some of our beds along with using it as a chicken play pen in our garden beds.....then cover it for fall plantings and early spring......what you did with covering your beds is exactly what we want to do.....love it!

hubby cant find any at places like home D and L'os but...he has only been looking online we have not been to the store yet to check it out.....

is the stuff you used called just hardware cloth? and where should we be looking for it?....and please tell me its not toooo spendy..  ...eeek.....we really need it for the chickens!....hubby said if we are going to have chickens then nothing is going to get them.....we have lots of problems with raccoons, opossums and rats   

happy gardening
rose

I got mine at Lowes. In the same area as the chicken wire. And yes, it does cost more.

Kay

thanks Kay....we will go check it out   

happy gardening
rose

FamilyGardening wrote:thanks for sending me this way SG   some how I have missed this thread   

love the covers on your beds!! and    your garden is beautiful!

the hardware cloth is what hubby has been trying to find.....we want to use it for our chicken run and for some critter protection in some of our beds along with using it as a chicken play pen in our garden beds.....then cover it for fall plantings and early spring......what you did with covering your beds is exactly what we want to do.....love it!

hubby cant find any at places like home D and L'os but...he has only been looking online we have not been to the store yet to check it out.....

is the stuff you used called just hardware cloth? and where should we be looking for it?....and please tell me its not toooo spendy..  ...eeek.....we really need it for the chickens!....hubby said if we are going to have chickens then nothing is going to get them.....we have lots of problems with raccoons, opossums and rats   

happy gardening
rose

..

Glad you found it Rose. They sell it on Amazon in larger rolls. It is sort of expensive, but it works!! And, as I said it really lasts. A 100 foot roll 3' wide is about $120, so not CRAZY expensive. We like it because it stands up all by itself, and looks nice and neat  As far as your chickens, SOMETHING has killed all of our chickens for the SIXTH time! We are in the midst of re-doing our pen AGAIN. We think it was raccoons but are not sure?? So frustrating.  
Below is the link for Amazon, and honestly it's cheaper than Home Depot, at least around here, and it was free shipping a while back. All we could find at the big box local stores were shorter rolls, and Amazon has the BIG rolls. We did find a hardware store that carried the big rolls, like at Amazon and ended up buying it there, but paid more, but we wanted it right away

Here's the link http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=hardware+cloth&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Ahardware+cloth

Thank you for the kind comments on our garden. We are getting excited about the results with the BTE method. It's a lot better than it was, but not "great"....yet  Our garden out front with the pig manure is "great"  lol!!  God bless and keep us updated!!

Little update here. We just topped off all our beds with about 2-3" of homemade compost! Took about one year to make it all, but it's SO beautiful! The beds look so nice and dark brown. Hoping it sifts down through the wood chips and feed our beautiful garden, and some rain would be awesome!!

That is absolutely beautiful !!!

jimmy cee wrote:That is absolutely beautiful !!!

+2

Thank you        

your garden looks so lovely, wish I lived closer and could take a walk thru with you   

your homemade compost does look like dark gold!!

im soooo envious    of your weather!!

thank you for sharing pictures with us.....it keeps me going thru our cold days!!

hugs
rose

LOVE the pictures.  Have a question:  how do you plan on storing the cages?  Will they be on the beds forever and ever always?  Do you have a place to put them when you want to  plant something taller in the beds?

I've got this issue with my cold frames that fit over my SFG beds... I didn't have a good place to store them after the cold weather turned scorching, and now they got mucked up with grass clippings on the stapled-on row cover.  I can replace the row cover.  But I'm trying to come up with a better solution for storage of garden things when they are out of season.

(And I have a 3'x100' roll of hardware cloth I didn't know what to do with -- I have been inspired by your pictures!  Thanks!)

ETNRedClay wrote:LOVE the pictures.  Have a question:  how do you plan on storing the cages?  Will they be on the beds forever and ever always?  Do you have a place to put them when you want to  plant something taller in the beds?

I've got this issue with my cold frames that fit over my SFG beds... I didn't have a good place to store them after the cold weather turned scorching, and now they got mucked up with grass clippings on the stapled-on row cover.  I can replace the row cover.  But I'm trying to come up with a better solution for storage of garden things when they are out of season.

(And I have a 3'x100' roll of hardware cloth I didn't know what to do with -- I have been inspired by your pictures!  Thanks!)

Hi ETN, that's a good question. I HATE clutter! They are rigid enough, that we can stack them 4 high without them collapsing. They may go even higher?? So, we have an area that we stack them. I also "hang" them on the top of our chain link fence. The top of chain link has lots of "spikey things" hanging out the top, and these hang on them really nicely. That's actually my favorite place. We originally only made enough "covers" to cover 1/2 of our beds, because I didn't think I'd ever need to cover them all at once, but after this successful gardening season we needed that many! We have 12" deep garden beds, and the soil is probably about 9" deep? So, with the 6" covers, the plants can grow to about 9" tall before they actually touch the covers. Does that make sense?
If you have 100' of hardware cloth make one for one of your beds and see if you like it! We really like ours. You can cover the covers with shade cloth or whatever you want to use for insulation too, they really hold up nicely.
We don't leave them on forever (and ever lol) if you look in the above post with my instructions, those are the same beds that are shown below with the flowers. I just took the covers off once the plants can take some "pecks" from our nasty birds! lol. Hope this helps. Let me know if you have more questions

Answered all my questions!  I'm eying my tinsnips thinking, it's the middle of the night, and my neighbors are used to seeing me up at all hours outside in subzero temps with the latest project... how bloody would this project be in the freezing dark....

ETNRedClay wrote:Answered all my questions!  I'm eying my tinsnips thinking, it's the middle of the night, and my neighbors are used to seeing me up at all hours outside in subzero temps with the latest project... how bloody would this project be in the freezing dark....

just do it!! lol!! how wide/long are your beds? Once you get your "pattern" they go pretty fast!! I wanna see them!! lol

Here's a pic of our garden this AM. We are finally getting some cooler weather, and the poppies and bees are so happy! Getting broccoli, cauliflower, kale, lettuce, carrots, beets, spinach, collard greens, peas, and the potato plants are looking nice and healthy!!