- Good Day. I'm Mark from
"Self Sufficient Me." In this video, I'm gonna give you four different types of raised garden bed covers that are easy and cost effective to make to protect your crops from
animals like birds and insects, and also the elements like harsh sunlight and cold. Let's get into it. (soft music) (birds chirping) Now, what I'm going to do is I'm gonna use the last bed out of these four. So I'm not going to use all four to do four separate demonstrations. The first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to set up the framework. And of course, the framework
is going to remain the same throughout the four examples. It's just going to be
the covers that change. So what we have here is some poly piping. It's a 25 mil or one inch pipe, and it's primarily used for irrigation. Then we've got these bamboo stakes here. This is a pack of 10, quite
inexpensive to buy like this. They don't last forever,
but they still last a reasonable time for the cost. You want it to be about,
at least six foot. That'll give you some scope
for a garden bed this high. The only other thing that
really isn't in the build of the framework is these clamps here, there are about two bucks each. And of course you do need
a good strong scissors or secateurs to be able
to cut up the poly piping. Righty-o. Let's just get into the frame. All right, the first thing I'm gonna do is put these stakes in. I like to have four sets of
posts in which makes eight; two at each end, and then
two sets in the middle. I'll go here just where
the bend starts to curve. And I just push it down close
to the inside of the bed until it gets to the bottom. You want at least a foot hanging out. So if it was just there, that'd be fine, but it's a couple of
feet, that's, that's fine. That's, that's good. The reason why you want the stakes hanging out a little bit further is because it gives extra
strength to the poly pipe, which makes your top structure for where your cover goes over. And you want to do it, of
course, directly across. Yeah, that looks about right. They're roughly all about the same height, but it doesn't matter if
they're a few inches out. Next thing you do is you
get your roll of poly pipe and don't cut it up, you don't need to. Well, not yet. Get one open-end, stick
it down one of those posts until it hits the bottom
of the garden bed there. And then you just measure it by the level. You want to have a nice curve, but not a huge curve
that makes it too flimsy. And then when you hold
it there, move it down, hold it to where it meets the base again, and then just cut that off. Then stick that on. And that's your first one down. You're gonna have a
fair bit of play in it, and that's quite normal. Make them all roughly the same height. Stick it over. Pull it down. Feed it down to there. Hold it up to about the
same height, roughly. Yeah, that's about right. Where it's going to meet there. Hold that, cut it. And then feed it on. Doesn't matter if they're not
all exactly the same height, they're gonna be a few inches
low here or there is okay. Last one. And that's pretty much the framework done. Now the first cover I'm gonna
show you is this bird netting. This is what most people will use to cover their garden beds. It's the most popular,
simply because birds and other animals are the ones that do the most damage to crops. You can get other colors, primarily white, but I prefer black because I
reckon that black looks better, but it also doesn't
stand out as much either. This here, I bought in
really long lengths, it's four meters wide by
however long you want to buy it. And then I simply cut it to size. UV protected, long lasting. So, what I do then, is I get my length, drop it at one side. and I just simply go over the top roughly and mark out how much I need. There, there, and yeah, about there. That gives me a good
overhang, both sides, cut that to size. And that's that. Now it's just a matter
of spreading it out. And letting it drop down. And this is where the clamps come in. Just start clamping it down. And then you're gonna have to readjust as you get this right. So I start on a corner, clamp there, maybe on the other corner, clamp, and so on, and just work your way around, just clamping it to the bed. So now you've got one in each corner. Now let's do one in each middle. So there and here. So I would put the ones on the ends last, because I'm going to group
those sides together. It's not a big deal. Just gonna grip them
together and bunch it up. It's the last thing I do
just to make sure it's tight and no animals are
gonna be able to get in. But also so that the net
is tight, so let's say, if a bat does tend,
accidentally land on the net, gets attracted to whatever's in there, tomatoes or something, hits the net, they don't get tangled up in it as easy. They can easily get out. In my whole time of gardening here, 15 years of using nets like this, I've never seen one animal
tangled in our nets. So that's a good thing. I've never even seen any
animal break through the nets or scratch through the nets or anything, they just simply stay away from it. I know, I've heard of other people, having animals get
tangled in nets and stuff. Something you should keep an eye out for, but for me, it's never happened. I think it's a fairly rare thing. Now you can see there are a few gaps. This is when you just pull them tight, close together, and start gripping them up and you'll soon get rid of any gaps. So from here, pull it, pull it, gap it up, grip it up, take that clamp off, give it a bit of a twist. See how it's pulling it
and stopping those gaps and then, clamping it on
in that ball, bowl there. And then once you've got the sides done, then it's just a matter of
gripping it in the middle here, and just bunching up the ends. Give it a bit of a twist. You got plenty of room
to give if you needed it, which we didn't. Might need to just tidy
up this side a bit. So, just remove this
clamp and just go around and just make sure that the gaps are, not that they have to be
super tight or anything. Just have to just be neat. Tidy up this end up a little bit. Yeah, that's cool. And then you go, have a look at that. You got nice height. It goes up in literally minutes. So easy to do, and it's also
easy to take down as well. It's just a matter of
getting rid of the clamps, pulling off that cover and
change that cover if you need to. And that's what we're going to do now. There we go. And then, pack that up for next season. The next cover is this insect mesh here. It's got a really small mesh
and it won't allow things like fruit fly or any
other types of insects to get into your crops. The other thing is though, it
also won't allow good insects like bees and some type of predator wasps and predator insects to get in there and control things like
aphids and whitefly, and other really tiny bugs too. So, it's a bit of give and take. What a throw. Yep, good. You see how the framework has bent in? It's not under real stress,
it's just molded nicely. The next cover is shade cloth. Now, what would you use this? Well, in case it gets too hot. In some climates, especially subtropical or dry desert climates
in the middle of summer, it's just way too hot to grow things, especially most vegetables. So, by giving them a little bit of shade, you can protect that crop
from getting sunburned and from suffering too much. And therefore it could be
still quite productive, even though you're growing at
a really harsh time of year. Shade cloth can also give you
protection, say from hail. this particular type here is a 30% shade. You can get 30, 50, 70, but I would advise going 30 or 50 maximum because fruit and veg
really do like some sun to get good results, anyway. Okay, I couldn't fix this up more and I should to get it nice and neat, but I can't be bothered. You get the idea, it's
not the prettiest example, but it would protect
your plants from the sun. And the last example I have for you is the garden bed hot house, using plastic. Because even in a subtropical climate, you do have some cool winters where you just can't
grow things like peppers, or you might want to extend the season of chilies and capsicum into the winter, in a subtropical situation. You might be in Florida, here, I'm north of Brisbane,
or in a cold climate. You could use it to start
things perhaps early, protect crops from frost, or again, extend a season as you're
coming into winter. And there's your hot house. I can tell you what, it is hot. As I was putting this last one on, I went in here and had a look. You can feel the, the
heat already in there. It's amazing how fast that heats up. And so, it does really work as a hot house and all these covers, they're
all easy to gain access to. Yes, some of the harsher
materials like this plastic, and the shade cloth,
might be a little tougher, but the insect netting and the
bird netting is really easy. All you pretty much do is you just clamp whatever you want to
get to, you unclamp it. You might unclamp one side
and then just lift it up, put the clamp on, and then
that's all you have to do. Lift it up there, put the clamp on, get to what you want to do. (exhales) It's hot in there. Get in there, plant your plants, harvest your plants, fix your plants, prune your plants, whatever. And then once you're finished, simply just put it back down again. Of course you can be a little
bit more pedantic than me. I'm just doing these demonstrations, and so they're not perfect
and getting through them pretty quickly so that I can just show you how it's done rather than getting them absolutely, perfectly, framed up. But of course, you'll have a
lot more time and fun doing it. Now, at the end of the season, it's just as easy to
pack up, if not easier. Then you've already got this made, you can pack it away, store it, and ready, be ready for the next season. Well, I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, make sure you
give it a big protective and covered up thumbs up and subscribe to the channel, if you haven't already. Make sure that you share the video around, if you think it's a good video, sharing my content around
helps my channel out heaps. Thanks a lot for watching, bye for now. I'm going to get out of this winter's sun. It's ridiculous, especially
that hot house, hacky cracky. I wouldn't like to be lying
in there for too long, I tell you what. (exhales) It does work a treat, though. Cheers.
