Please click here for another image of the cage.

This cage can be used for protecting fruit and brassicas such as cabbage, purple sprouting broccoli, oriental vegetables and other crops from such pests as pigeons and other birds. A smaller net size can be used to protect against cabbage white butterflies.

The cage above is 155cm high at its maximum, 4.8m long and 4.0m wide - but each of these dimensions can be increased or decreased very easily. These are some of its advantages:

• It's by far the cheapest and easiest way of constructing a cage.
• It can be dismantled or moved very easily as well as constructed very easily. Two people can carry the cage to a new position. One person can dismantle it and move it to a new position in a few minutes. Why continue to protect crops when the need for protection is over? The inflexible traditional cage makes this almost obligatory. Why continue to protect strawberries when your strawberries are no longer in danger of attack? Why continue to protect your raspberries or redcurrants when now it's your cabbages which need protecting.? The cage can be used to the full after the summer and early autumn crops to protect winter crops.
• The dimensions of the cage can be changed very easily. In this way, too, it's far more flexible than the fruit and vegetable cages which are commercially available, or the smaller cages which have a series of hoops for support. More sections can be added to the flexible support to make it higher - up to about 3m high. The cage in the top photograph is a 'walk-in' cage. (The total cost, supports and netting, for a cage of this size is about £ 20.) Alternatively, a long section can be used which has a low arch, quite near to the ground, to protect low-growing crops - the lower the height, the greater the area which can be protected by the same netting. The same system can protect a strawberry bed and an apple or pear tree, although not a very large tree.
• Appearance of the plant. Whatever the plant, it will look better without netting protection. Raspberries aren't the most beautiful of plants, but when they're growing healthily and vigorously they can delight the eye - if, that is, they're not simply glimpsed behind the netting of a fruit cage. Again, the traditional fruit cage, unlike the PHD cage, can't be removed so easily.
• Appearance of the cage. The traditional rectangular fruit or vegetable cage doesn't have particular visual strength.. It simply sits there. The graceful, curving lines of the PHD cage are attractive, I think.
• At times in the year when nothing at all needs protecting, it's far better that the cage should be dismantled and put away. This takes a prohibitively long time in the case of the traditional cage, no time at all in the case of the PHD cage, which is stored as a small package.The reason for dismantling cages is that UV light harms the netting, shortening its life, and rain has a damaging effect upon poles. Manufacturers may claim that the netting is 'UV stabilized' and that the poles are specially treated, but there's no escaping the fact that being outside shortens the life of equipment.
• Perhaps a minor consideration, given the mild winters in recent years, although some future winters may be very different - the sloping sides of this design shed snow, the flat netting which forms the roof of the traditional design doesn't, and can be damaged by accumulation of snow.
• The design avoids other disadvantages of the commonly used home-made design. Commercially available fruit cages are used for taller crops. For less tall crops, gardeners have usually made their own netting protection system. An established method is shown in the well-known book by Dr D G Hessayon 'The Fruit Expert' (Page 59.) There are wooden stakes, or canes, which support the netting, which tends to sag at numerous places. Each stake is covered with an upturned plant pot. There are bricks at intervals to hold down the netting and prevent birds from entering. I've used this established method, and I found it so frustrating to use that I made an effort to find an alternative. Netting can be a frustrating material. It's easily caught on angular surfaces, including the plant pots used in the established home-made design. My design minimizes this problem, since the flexible support is curved, not angular.

This cage makes use of a lightweight, flexible support, which is cheap and readily available, although not in shops which sell gardening equipment. (Please contact me for information about buying the support. I don't sell the support myself. This isn't the Web site of a business.) The cage doesn't employ the fairly thick and heavy tubing of the traditional cage. This is an advantage, I think. There's a saving in cost and material, and a saving in material imposes less of a pressure on resources. A cage doesn't have to withstand great forces. It doesn't have to withstand great wind forces. Obviously, even gale-force winds can't blow the netting away. It doesn't have to bear heavy loads, except for snow. A lightweight structure is perfectly capable of doing the job, and a heavy, solid structure would be excessive. A building which uses slender, graceful columns or pillars rather than very thick ones to bear a load is in no danger of collapsing - it's using a sophisticated design to carry the load rather than a crude design.

I tend to construct large cages and always use netting of 6m x 4m dimensions. Netting of smaller dimensions can be used but whatever the length, the width has to be adequate - 2m is generally not sufficient.

The cage can be constructed perfectly easily, simply by pushing the ends of the support into the ground and using tent pegs to secure the netting, 2 at each end. Alternatively, small sections of bamboo can be used. With the two ends of the netting secure, work down each side, securing the netting to the ground at intervals. Again, tent pegs or small sections of bamboo can be used. These need not be visible later.

This picture shows the use of two flexible supports (of not quite the same height, in this case) rather than the single supports shown in the photographs at the top of the page. Here, the two supports are overlapping but they can be placed further apart so that they are no longer overlapping. The possibility of using single supports or two supports at varying distances apart gives the system great flexibility - very different lengths can be covered. Different widths can be covered too. If the same netting is used but the supports are lower, then obviously the netting can be brought out further at the sides. The short bamboo poles make the width of the cage greater. A more elegant way is to use a further flexible support, as in this image:

Whether tent pegs or small pieces of bamboo are used, the method of securing the netting is the same, if moveable boards are used to surround the bed. (See my page on boards for the system which I use.) Before the netting has been secured, it will be hanging down in front of the board, near to you. Lift the board slightly, push the netting underneath the board so that the netting is now on the other side of the board. Push down a tent peg or piece of bamboo on the inside of the board so that it goes through the netting. The netting is now secure at this point. Go on to the next securing point. Only a few are needed for the entire length of netting. When you've finished one side of the cage, push the board back down. The board secures the netting as well as the pegs or bamboo. In fact, when a board is used, the netting can be secured without using any pegs or bamboo at all. If moveable boards aren't used, then simply peg the netting into the ground. (The cage in the top photograph is secured without the use of boards.)

One disadvantage of the system has to be admitted, but in my experience it's not at all an important disadvantage. There are metal connections in the support. After a time, these will corrode to some extent so that it's difficult or impossible to separate the sections of the support. I store the support as a single long section, without taking it apart when it's not used. By using two supports, overlapping or not overlapping, I find that I can erect cages which meet any need. For overwintering crops I generally have something like five cages in use at once to protect brassicas. Some of these will have been used to protected fruit crops in the summer.