North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Erdman, James" <ErdmanJ@uwstout.edu>]

Some years back we discovered that the reason we never got blueberries
was that the deer and rabbits pruned the bushes in the winter, and the
birds ate the few berries in the summer, before we got to them.  We put
some steel fence posts around our small patch of berries, connected at
the top with cheap electric fence wire (which we had lots of), and then
we draped cheap tree netting over it all.  We finally got a good crop of
berries, and ended up making an actual permanent cage around the
berries.  Our row is only 25 feet long, though, so it wasn't too hard to
put in some 4x4 treated posts on the corners and midway down the sides,
sticking out of the ground 6 feet, connecting them with 2x4s around the
top, and covering it all with 1 inch mesh chicken wire.  We put an old
screen door in one side for access, and made the cage 5 feet wide.  It
has worked well for 15 years or so.  I planted another 7 or 8 plants
this spring, and just brought home the treated lumber to make another
cage around the new row.  It will be 5 feet wide, 6 feet tall, and 24
feet long.

We have removable frames in an inverted "U" shape that we put over our
cherry trees when the cherries start to ripen, and then cover with
netting for a few weeks so that we can get some cherries for ourselves.
Something like that might work for blueberries, too.  We used 1 1/2" PVC
drain pipe.

Jim, in Menomonie, WI



-----Original Message-----
From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Goodwill at
Homefields Farm
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 2:16 PM
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [NAFEX] hoops for blueberry bird netting

we draped bird netting over our three 160 foot rows of bushes last year 
but the bushes grew into the netting, so I'm thinking that we need some 
kind of hoops or trellis to support the netting.  I'm curious what other

people do?

Thanks,

Scott