Securing netting to raised beds

Over the years we have tried many different ways of securing netting to the raised beds. Whether it be simply weighing the edge of the net down with planks, bricks or scaffolding poles or stapling the net to the side of the bed itself.

Both have pros and cons. Weighing the nets down is quick and relatively easy if you have spare materials to hand.

With a lot of raised beds you will soon run out of things to use, especially if you are always recycling into other projects. That scaffold pole that was handy for weighing down a net? Well cut it in half and now it is both ends of the raspberry frame.

Stapling seems like a great idea and then you realise that you need to get into the beds not just to pick crops, but also to weed. Our site is also quite windy, and the contact area of a staple is not very much at all, so you find that the netting tends to tear.

However, last year we tried something different and so far it seems to work quite well.

Take an offcut of wood and use that to grip the netting between the offcut and the side of the raised bed.

It is held in place with a couple of nails that you leave proud of the surface and then you are able to easily remove them to get into the raised bed to weed.

This method seems to have the advantages of the alternatives, but so far without the cons.