Few things are as satisfying to a gardener as picking home grown berries right off the plant,
but often the birds get to it before they can even get ripened. In this short video we'll show
how we put up a temporary netting structure to keep the birds away from the blueberries.
Blueberry flowers start appearing in the spring and by late spring the berries have formed and
started to get bigger by the day. Before the berries even start changing color we have to find
a way to protect the berries. The blueberry bushes provide easy access to tasty fruit and birds enjoy
the tiny fruits just as much as we do. Birds become a problem when the berries begin to ripen
and are ready for harvest. Birds can cause damage in number of ways. Some species peck on the fruit
leaving holes in the fruits while other birds will eat the entire berry.
Birds might also knock the fruit from the bush as they forage around for other kinds of food. The
most common blueberry eating birds are Starlings and Robins. Netting is one of the most effective
way to keep birds away from blueberry bushes. Poles are pounded into the ground around the
bushes and netting is attached to them completely covering blueberry bushes from top to bottom.
Netting is one of the best foolproof options and is commonly used by home gardeners and
berry growing farmers. Use three-quarter inch mesh which is small enough to protect from most birds.
Netting is available at home improvement stores and online places.
I have left a link to the one we have used in the description below.
Once the frame is assembled drape the bird netting,
It is better to get at least two or three helpers to help with the netting step.
Ensure that the netting is large enough to reach the ground on all sides,
make sure there's no gaps otherwise birds will find their way inside and become trapped.
Birds will land on and peck through the mesh if you simply drape it over the bushes
and if the netting is too close to the plants netting directly on the plant also entangles
many clusters of berries causing them to be ripped off from the plant.
So it is most effective to use stakes or poles to prop the netting over the plants.
Ensure that the netting is large enough to reach the ground on all sides.
To harvest simply crawl under the net and pick from underneath the net.
The berries would be ripening at different stages
so you can keep coming back and getting the ripe ones and putting the net back in place.
This is the safest and most effective way to protect the berries from the bird.
The frame structure we put up was temporary and was good enough to last three to five
weeks. After all the harvesting the netting can be carefully folded back to be reused for next year.
We did not have any birds get entangled up in the net. We got to pick and enjoy a lot
of berries because of this simple technique. In addition to blueberries you can adapt this
technique to protect other fruits as well. Thanks for watching and happy gardening !!