Mission: Netting

It sounds easy in theory. Just put up a few poles and stretch some netting over the top of it to keep out the pesky birds. Not so. First you need to buy the net. Ebay. What would we do without it? The problem of course is that the courier company that the supplier used did not deliver to us. So after chasing around looking for the stuff, the courier eventually agreed to drop it off at the local co-op in Colac.

The area to be covered. The little whirly gigs just don't look aggressive enough to keep the birds off the garden beds.

Frans then prepared posts and worked out his plan of how it would all fit together. We then measured and took a deep breath and cut the netting into two 28m lengths.

Two long lengths of net. How hard can it be to join it and lift it?

Then we needed to join the stuff down the middle. Pull up a chair and get comfortable. Well, not too comfortable.

We shuffled along the length of the netting, joining two edges with little netting clips. We created a join every two centimetres or so. We used almost 1000 clips.

It took a while…… We solved the problems of the world while we clipped and moved along… clipped and moved along. Finally it was done.

Our challenge was then how we were going to lift the netting up onto the frame. Brooms. Very useful. Not just for sweeping. Frans and I heaved and pulled and finally we got the net over and stretched onto the frame. 

At this stage we were rather concerned that the wires and poles would not hold the weight of the netting. 

Frans standing at the top of the ladder.... health and safety? Nah..... 'she'll be right mate'

All that was left was to secure the net along the bottom. Tent pegs and steel poles were used. Our next camping trip may be a disaster if we don’t replace the pegs before we go! It was a tedious process, but finally we stood back and ‘hi fived’ each other. Another job done.

We have now ensured that we will have peaches, nectarines, strawberries and loads of vegies without bird damage. It is a beautiful thing.