North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>]

On Jun 9, 2010, at 10:53 AM, William C. Garthright wrote:

> 
>> I've read that the netting doesn't work well draped and needs to be 
>> supported. Is this true in everyone's experience?
> 
> 
> Generally, I'd say it works much better suspended overhead, rather than 
> just draped on the tree or bush, because it mats down the leaves and is 
> easily stuck on berries (and on everything else!). If you must leave it 
> for very long, some plants will grow into it, making it difficult to 
> remove later. (Grapevines are particularly bad at this.)

I agree that it works better supported, and is much less of a nuisance, but 
I've used it draped and it did work okay.  The fence around my half-high 
blueberries is no longer high enough to suspend the netting above the St. 
Cloud (which is taller than the Northsky or Northblue)

However, this thread reminded me of what a pain it is to deal with netting 
draped onto the plants, so I dug out the fiberglass hoops I bought for use 
with raspberries (unused for years, and I don't need to net the raspberries) 
and used them over the St. Cloud section of the row.

I only use the netting from when the berries size up until they've been 
harvested.  The rest of the year it gets shoved into a bag in the garage.  I 
recently "upgraded" from the black plastic stuff to a woven nylon material.  
The jury is still out on whether this is better.  It does seem less inclined 
to snag on me and the bushes.  At least, it was pretty easy to drape over the 
bushes yesterday.  I had to "sew" two lengths together to get it wide enough, 
which was a nuisance, but only has to be done once.

My netting gets draped over the fencing (and the hoops) and I just lift it to 
harvest, and drop it back down when I'm done.

I re-use netting for many years.  I decided to replace the black plastic 
netting because the ends, where the weeds grew into it, and the lawnmower 
snagged it, were getting hard to handle.  But I could have used it for 
another couple of years.

I'm the one who recommended keeping the netting off the ground (by having 
permanent hardware cloth fencing at the bottom, which the netting overlaps.  
It keeps the lower weeds out of the netting and has enormously reduced how 
many little animals and birds I snare and kill.

Ginda Fisher
eastern MA, zone 6