Quickly Constructing Vegie Bed Protection

03 Jul

Posted By kristi 0 Comment(s) 17 View(s) Plant Pests and Ways to Control Them , Horticultural Bits

First published 3rd July 2026

As with the Wollongong Botanic Garden’s Kawasaki Bridge, hubby’s wonderful vegie beds too are succumbing to our climate — and these were constructed from hardwood and treated pine!

(And if you reeled in horror at treated pine being used for vegie beds, please do read this fascinating CSIRO publication on The facts about CCA-treated timber. This is a very measured and highly informative seven-page article that is very quick and easy to read. The original link was here, now missing, perhaps through a site restructure? But now archived here.)

The plans to erect large wooden frames on which to hang protective netting must wait until these beds are either repaired or replaced, but the winter brassica vegies I wanted to sow could not. July is really busy for me with the jujube trees.

I also needed somewhere safe for the too-quickly-growing kale and broccoli mentioned here. The kale had already been attacked once by a rat and I wasn't taking chances.

And I needed something quick! I hadn’t actually planned to do this that day, but it was a day that felt right to finally do this — does this happen to you or is it just me?

So I was winging this as I went, and it took about two or three hours from start to finish, which was about 30-45 minutes more than I expected. This was everything, including building the frame, sowing the seeds, transplanting the kale and broccoli, and placing the net and the bricks:

Bamboo canes, a crop protection net, and these six-way bamboo connectors did the job, plus some string for good measure.

These are the connectors:

You will get best results with canes that are 10-12 mm diameter at both ends, as these jam tightly into the holes and do not budge. The canes I used were 10 mm at one end and 8 mm at the other, so I had the 8 mm end buried in the soil for the uprights. The canes are 105 cm long, too long for the cross pieces, so by the time I cut those to size I had my other 10 mm — or close to it — end.

As some of those cut ends didn’t fit super snugly, I lashed all the joins for good measure:

As I said, I was winging this, and while this net just draped over the frame would be more than adequate to keep the white cabbage moth off the brassicas, it wasn’t going to stop rodents climbing up and nosing their way in. Hence the on-the-fly bricks around the perimeter ensuring no tiny gap for them to squeeze through.

I ended up placing more bricks than that as I wasn’t happy about being able to stick my finger under the net. If my finger could fit, so could a rodent’s nose, with the rest of the body shortly thereafter.

The sad-looking drooping thing at front is comfrey, which always looks this miserable in winter. It’s fine!

Tags: crop protection,

Short Bio

Kristi Ellinopoullos
BSc(Hons), U.Syd. - double major in biochemistry and microbiology, with honours in microbiology
PhD, U.Syd - soil microbiology
Stumbled into IT and publishing of all things.
Discovered jujube trees and realised that perhaps I should have been an agronomist…
So I combined all the above passions and interests into plant-related websites and blogs, on which I write about plants, gardening, botany, soil chemistry, soil microbiology and biochemistry!

If you have any deep interest in microbiology and/or biochemistry, and how these apply to plants, I’m writing a deep-dive online book From Soil to Fruit here.

Related Products

Quickview

Bamboo Cane/Stake, 105 cm Long, 8-10 mm Diameter, per Half-Dozen or Dozen

PICK-UP OR COURIER OWING TO LENGTH Price is per half-dozen or dozen. If you’re local and only after one or three, I also sell them individually here..

$3.00

Ex Tax:$2.73