North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>]

On Nov 22, 2007, at 8:05 PM, William C. Garthright wrote:

> > I haven't found any dead birds in my netting, but I've found one  
> > dead snake and found and rescued another only because the dog was  
> > barking at it.  I had to cut it out.
>
>
> What, the rattles get caught in the net?  :-)
>
> This summer, I found one dead robin in a net I'd thrown over a currant
> bush. That taught me that I can't just let the excess netting lie  
> on the
> ground. Next year, I'll try to tie up any extra netting into a neat
> ball. And keep the rest of it fairly tight and smooth.

I net my blueberries.  If the netting doesn't go to the ground,  
critters just go underneath it.  If it does go to the ground, I have  
to remove lots of dead chipmunks and a few dead birds each season. I  
finally put in a one foot tall permanent fence of hardware cloth  
around the bottom of the blueberry row, and now I drape the netting  
to overlap a few inches with the fences.  Keeps out the birds without  
killing anything.  And at one foot tall, it's short enough that it's  
not much in my way the rest of the year.

Ginda
eastern Mass, zone 6