Blueberry netting advice.

[abby]

I am new to growing blueberry's and have just purchased two plants/bushes can you advise the best way to keep the pesky blackbirds from having the fruits when and if I get any this year.What is the best sort of netting to get?..Living in hope :@)

[piskieinboots]

I have grown blueberries for a number of years now, I haven't ever netted and always manage to get an excellent crop - wasps tend to enjoy my blueberries, but I had so many last year that I was happy to share

[littleexperience]

just use some cheap plastic netting you get in rolls and make a frame round your blueberries with short bamboo canes or just short sticks lying around i did have a major problem with blackbirds eating all my blueberriers till i made a cheap frame

[Madasafish]

I do as littleexperience says: we have lots of blackbirds. No nets = no berries for us and well fed blackbirds - and pigeons and magpies and crows...and pheasants


I made a mini frame from sticks...

[littleexperience]

one other point i have to stress is if you do decide to net your blueberries you must check the nets a few times each day for trapped birds as the first year of netting our blueberries unfortunately we had a few fatalities which was not nice

[Curlykale]

Must pinch your frame idea - last year I couldn't work out how the blueberries were disappearing despite being netted - until I watched a blackbird find a tiny gap at the bottom of the net, hop in and enjoy his very own blueberry bush, before hopping out again. It didn't even bother him that I was watching him just a couple of feet away!

[WrexTheDragon]

I also use the cheap netting over a bamboo cane frame.

The blackbirds can strip a bush in two days, I learnt this the hard way a few years ago. Great crops since I started to use the netting.

[abby]

Thanks for all your help I will have some fun and it will prob give some laughs, mostly the birds me thinks. Like the birds on rhubarb and custard cartoon lol....

[gojiberry]

I built a simple wooden frame around mine and used a stiff netting stapled to the sides, and a soft fruit net over the top. This way I can simply remove the top net at this time of the year to let the bees in and cover up once the fruit has set.Impossible for birds to get entangled in the stiff netting and is definitely bird proof. Didn't get one blueberry last year hence the frame this year.

Ian