The arms race with the birds began early this year. Rather than waiting for the birds to start dust bathing in my seedlings, we decided to build a more semi-permanent solution. I have seen several planter boxes in the neighborhood that have a bracketing system using PVC pipe. Most are bracketed to the inner wall. But since our soil is filled to the top, I need to bracket to the outer border.
Each bracket is made from a 6 inch segment of 1″ PVC schedule 40. These are affixed to the railroad ties by 2 x 1″ strap fittings, using 1-1/2″ lag screws. Each pair is spaced about 3 feet apart. Then I arced an entire 10 foot length of 1/2″ CPVC pipe (thinner and more flexible than normal PVC) between the brackets, and placed a cap over the end to keep it from springing free. Now that brackets are in place, setting up the actual framework should be easy. Once the plants are established, it will be easy to remove and store the CPVC part; the brackets will stay attached year-round.
The netting itself remains as challenging as ever, but far easier to stretch over this frame than previous iterations. One neighbor has some kind of nylon net (almost like a soccer goal) that looks far easier to handle. For now will continue using the Bird-X (with 0.75″ openings), but will keep looking. Apparently, this type of netting doesn’t keep the bees out.
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