Experiment - Flower Pots for Fruit Cages - will it work?

[canadian-gardening]

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Hi everyone;
Still trying to get some fruit from my garden instead of critters left-overs.
I did this cage with hardware-cloth that I really like, but it's an extra expense.
viewtopic.php?t=432

What about all those flower pots that we have accumulated over the years?
That's my next project.
I will share my garden, but I refuse to accept critters left-overs.
My melons were growing well and then the next morning - they left me 3.
https://canadian-gardening.ca/growing-f ... atermelon/
I will be back!
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[canadian-gardening]

Update: Trying the 5-gallon flower pot

Today I'm trying my old 5-gallon plastic flower pots as melon cages. I drilled/melted holes around the rim about 3-1/2 inches apart and I'm making a round wire lid with a notch for the melon stem.

The honeydew and cantaloupe are already almost ready to pick, so I'm designing this around harvesting rather than trying to build a permanent cage around the vine.

I'll lay the pot on its side, slide the melon inside, put the notched lid over the stem and secure it with thin wire. When the melon is ready, I'll snip the stem, remove the wire and take the melon out.

If I run out of flower pots, I'll go back to hardware cloth.
viewtopic.php?t=432
So far, I think this is going to be much less fiddly than making the hardware-cloth cages.

Going to find a picture that I took yesterday of the flower pot.
I have the holes drilled/melted - but haven't made the lid yet.
I'll probably turned the pot upside down on hardware-cloth and trace it.
Or maybe cut a wooden round and use it as a jig and trace it.
Depends how ambitious I feel at the moment. Not very.
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[LionGardener]

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Picture of pot drilled.
For Drilling:
the pot is thin enough that I was able to melt a hole.
I didn't want to burn any of my tools so I found this piece of wire - bend it for something for me to hold on to.
Thick wire from a clothes hanger will work as well.
Oven gloves - heated the wire over the stove and burnt holes around the pot.

Now time to stop procrastinating and make the wire lid.
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pot-cage-drilled.jpg

[canadian-gardening]

I have quite a few of five gallon pots and I thought of making a template for the wire round for the lid.
So I found a piece of scrap wood and turn the pot over on the wood and traced the pot and looked like a nice round.
Then I got a ruler out and measured the diameter and my pot was not perfectly round.
"Ok" now what do I do - make a template for a wonky pot or make a perfect round for all pots.
I went for a perfect round - out came the old compass and even faster with a circle cutter for the bandsaw or router.
Tried it out the new metal round on the pot - nature is not precise and the wonky round worked on the misshapen pot but since I'm making a template - I'm using the perfect round for all 5 gallon pots that I have.
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[canadian-gardening]

-flower pot cage - it would be a lot easier to attach lid if the melons were not almost ready to pick.
Next year I will be ready.
What do you think?
Good enough to share the how to?
It works for me - and critters have been looking at the fortress, but have not found the gate yet.
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