Removable Protection

I think I need to build some sort of removable barrier on one side of my beds to protect my SFG from basketballs. When we moved in the house there was a strip of ground on the south side of the house between the driveway and the house. On the other side of the drive way is a basketball hoop. Things have been great until now; the kids have just recently become interested in basketball. I placed my seedlings out on top of the MM so they could get a little sun and a basketball took out some seedlings. I was able to save everything except for one basil.

Now I need to come up with some sort of barrier to keep rogue basketballs from taking out a plant in my SFG. I have 4x4 beds about a foot away from the house. I really don't want to have a plant about to produce and be cut down in it's prime by a basketball. Since this will be placed on the very front of my bed I want to make it removable. I have a few ideas but I was wondering what the great minds on this forum could come up with. I have 4x4 beds about a foot away from the house.

-if it were up to me I would remove the basketball goal but that would make the kids would be really upset.

I'm very curious to see responses to this too. I think I finally got space for a bed or two available in a side lawn, and I want to build a tabletop 4x4 there, without fencing it in. Good post and deer fencing would be cost-prohibitive for the forseeable future. But a 4x4 with a removable cover on it?

I remember seeing Mel talk about it in the ANSFG book. Chickenwire over 1x1 wood to make a square frame, as I recall. But I'd love to see everyone's take on what they might have done. The thing with the glass doors is out; we get 100 degree temps over the summer and no rain. Too much heat. I also need to keep it light. I'm thinking remay to keep the cabbage worms out, on top of some sort of frame sturdy enough to keep deer and maybe squirrels out, as well as the occasional opportunistic bird.

So count me as another subscriber to this thread.

I made a cage like the one in the book when I first started SFG.  Only the base is wood.  Then the chicken wire forms sides and a top.  The example in the book would not withstand a basket ball falling on it.  You could strengthen the sides and top with 2 x 2's and make it just bigger than the 4x4 and slip it right over the top.  Of course this won't work if you have anything growing/falling out the sides.

Yeah, peas falling out of the sides of the box would get eaten, maybe even pulled out. And I do wonder how tall to make it; things like brussels sprouts, for instance, can get a few feet high.

4x4 is a pretty big size. Making it strong but still light sounds tricky, and cumbersome sounds like a given no matter what. Our side lawn is easily visible from the road, too, so we want it to look reasonably good. That's why my first instinct wasn't PVC framing. Would cattle panel, bent into a cover shape for the box, be a decent idea? That would be a strong enough structure to lay chickenwire over and together keep out deer, racoons, etc., right?

I've never actually seen cattle panel in real life!

cattle panel sounds like the perfect solution! If you can find it. I've searched high and low and can't find it in my area.  

C C

http://www.seamarnets.com/category/101005

http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/search/feedlot-panels

Thanks for the replies. I was thinking about cattle panel also. Maybe attach the panel to the front of the box and then bend it backward toward the house so the cattle panel is bent into a 1/4 circle. This protects from a direct straight on attack and it also protects from an aerial assault from the basketballs. Like Marc my beds are on the side of the house and they can be see from the street so it needs to look nice or be hard to see.

Only thing about bending it into an arch is that toward the bottom of the arch, I wouldn't want the angle to be too tight. Even if there's enough cattle panel and chicken wire overlay to keep out the critters, I want the plants to be able to have the space to lift their heads up above the beds and look around.

Which brings me again around to some sort of a square shaped top, with the top a couple of feet or more above ground level. I just wonder how it will keep its shape when lifted on and off, and whether the looks will be good enough to be family-approved.

CapeCoddess wrote:cattle panel sounds like the perfect solution! If you can find it. I've searched high and low and can't find it in my area.  

C C

Don't think they have them on the Cape, but Tractor Supply carries at least 2 sizes of cattle panels.