Tired of birds and squirrels getting all my berries.
My first cage with more to come.
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I did the same thing last year. And it worked really well!! Not one berry missing!
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It looked like you built an aviary for small birds! But it’s a reverse aviary/rabbit hutch. So far, birds have never bothered our blueberries. It’s probably because they hadn’t noticed them. They are sort of tucked in among rose bushes and hedges. I like your solution. The netting won’t get tangled on the bushes. Light weight enough to move and place over other things when you want.
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At our house the birds will get every one of these berries before they are completely ripe. Although the birds will get some of my blackberries I can pick most before the birds get interested.
Well done, Bill. Super easy to take on and off. And easy to disassemble and reassemble each season.
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Maybe that’s also part of my good fortune with having them leave the blues alone - there are soooo many wild blackberries ripe at the same time in the vicinity that they may be more focused on those.
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I did the same thing but with 2x2’s. I just slap stapled the nets on. I did it for my seedling trees in pots that are on my deck. The chipmunks kept digging in the pots and killing my trees! The birds got my blue berries the last two years and I’m making another one for the blue berries. I might just use the one I have if it’s big enough.
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I just put up posts on the edges to hold the net up and throw it over. Blueberries are now the only fruit I net, all the others I can control the birds with scare tape.
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I think I will give the scare tape a try on my Bing tree if it ever fruits! I got maybe fifty flowers this year but next year I’m thinking will be the year. It’s nine foot tall now and to big for netting. I have been cutting a foot off the growth every year but I think I’m just going to let it get big now.
I might give the scare tape a try on the blackberries. Thanks for the tip. Bill
RayRose. That has to be one of the best cages that I have ever seen. From the picture it appears to be intended to stay up year round. What material did you use?
I have the same problem with digging around new plants.
Thank you
Wow, Ray, very impressive. Is there a way you can enter the enclosure?
Yes it does stay up year round, but could be completely taken down
in no time. I drove 3’ long rebar halfway into the ground, then took 10’ long
1 " wide pvc pipe, cut it into 5’ long sections and placed it on top of the rebar.
Then joined the sections with 10’ long 1/2"rebar, spray painted all of the pvc pipe and put 30’x30’ netting from American Nettings over the hoop house and attached the netting to the hoops with twist ties, and secured the bottoms with brick. It measures 55’ x 9’. I plan om building another for my figs. There is a door on the side that I’ll post for Hooseierquilt.
This is the door, which is pvc pipe attached to some black netting secured with twist ties with 2 V hooks screwed into the rebar on both sides
that serve as a ledge on which to place the bottom of the door. The netting just rolls up with the pvc pipe…
My impression is that people that live in more urban/suburban settings have much worse trouble from birds than people in the country. Do you think that’s true? And if so, why is it? Are bird populations higher in cities because of all the people that put out bird feed? I can think of at least 5 rural examples of people in my area with 2-12 blueberry plants, none of whom have notable bird trouble, and I’ve heard from at least 3 (probably a lot more) urban/suburban people in my area, all of whom say the birds don’t leave them a single berry. It seems like night and day difference.
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Very nice cage…but if that’s plastic mesh it won’t stop a squirrel. And I don’t mean to be a kill joy, but a squirrel will also dig under the bottom piece. But for birds it looks very good.
I’ve never had a squirrel even try to get inside the hoop house. They can’t dig
under it, because the bottom is lined with bricks, and I’ve never seen a squirrel that could pick up a brick.