Look on ID Market. Chicken enclosures come ready made for fruit cages (frame and chicken wire) - the large ones substitute net for the roof. (I had an old roll of chicken wire I replaced it with - but that’s more fox/Martin protection). With delivery usually 100+ for a 6m2 - but depending on size they get more expensive. They discount heavily now and then - I last paid 200 euros for 20+M2 delivered on offer for the big chicken run. Bricoprive also has discounts quite often on idmarket products.
My guinea pigs have been in one for 6 years now - and the chickens two years. Frames are fine. Given what I know now - I’d have sprayed the frame black for the guinea pig one as it’s right outside the kitchen window/outdoor eating place which would make it a bit less “ugly”
The 60 euro L’clerc sales polytunnels have a limited life - but the slightly better ones survive years.
I’ve lashed together small frames/covers using the bits left after the storms wrapped the cheap tunnels around a tree (work fine but so not pretty).
Without the plastic cover they don’t get destroyed by storms or heavy snow - and the water doesn’t hold so the frames survive.
Avoid the 10-12mm diameter frames - the 60 euro tunnels. But the next price up are enough.
Chicken wire you can get tight and it’s more bird friendly - but obviously you can replace it with netting if your using a poly tunnel frame.
One year after whingeing that we’d got hardly any blueberries. this year we have a glut!
Last weekend we tried a blueberry version of clafouti and it was brilliant. I’m a bit stuck for what to do with the rest - I’ve been giving away large quantioties to friends and neighbours but there’s still a lot left.
A few years back I tried making blueberry jam - plain and also a spiced version - but wasn’t thrilled about either. The blueberry version of Creme de Cassis I made was a lot more successful but it goes a long way in kirs.
Try bottling with gin or vodka leaving for a few months before straining and re bottling. If the outcome is decent keep some and Christmas presents for others.
I use Mary Berry’s traybake mixture and put it in little cases. You can tart it up a bit with orange juice and zest as well as blueberries, they go together well.
I only know this because each year I find massive amounts of cracked-open walnut shells on the wall and the ground below this particular tree.
I am not sure if I’m glad or not that I have never come across whichever bird or animal is big and strong enough to crack open those hard nut shells and eat through so many walnuts.
Jackdaws love walnuts and seem to know the exact point at which to hammer them to break the shell open. Trouble is that they break them on the ridge of the roof, eat the nut, and then leave the shell to be washed into the guttering causing blockages.
Ice cream? Or your own sirop? Though the version someone’s proposed with vodka might keep best .
I’m thinking there must be German recipes about for making Obstbranntwein ie fruit brandy. ISTR German Swiss and Austrian supermarkets getting in very large bottles of some quite rough spirit around this time of year for that use. Apparently the product comes out very smooth. @Bettina or anyone Polish might know.
Sorry, only time I tried using alcohol pour fruits with my glut of figs it became a dangerous explosive.
Inside of my cupboard took ages to clean up.
Rumtopf - according to book. Add layer of fruit, sugar, cover with rum. Add another layer of different fruit, sugar, rum as it becomes available through the season.
Leave until Christmas. Serve over ice cream and get totally wasted.
I shall have a go…
