Protect fruit plants from pesky birds
What do I need to do to protect my blueberries, grapes and even my apples from the birds eating them? I tried netting, but it just got tangled in the vines and plants, and the birds just reach through to eat the grapes. Grapes can’t be harvested early to ripen indoors and must stay on the vine until ripe. Birds seem to like grapes, blueberries, serviceberries and other small fruits at a stage that is right before we would say they are ripe. I don’t know if they prefer them that way, or if competition for food is so fierce they need to eat the fruit as soon as possible. We want the fruit to remain on the vine for a week or more, while the birds are eating away.
Bird netting is best when installed on frames above the vines. A tent-like structure of netting keeps the birds out and the netting tangle-free. If the netting is wide enough, you can even get under it to harvest. Netting works best on vines installed on long wire trellises. At each end of the trellis, in- stall a T-shaped set of poles with wire strung between them and the netting will hang perfectly. If the vines are on a pergola or wooden structure, netting is harder to install.
On structures, most grape clusters hang down from the vine under the structure where bagging the clusters can be done easily. Bagging grapes on long wire trellises is much harder, because you can’t find them as easily. Paper or plastic bags will work, as will old nylon stockings or socks. Paper lunch bags will hold a whole cluster and they come in packages of 100.
Since we don’t need to protect the grapes for more than a few weeks, the paper bags will last long enough. Just open the bag, slide it over the cluster and staple it shut on each side of the stem. If necessary, you can cut off a tendril or leaf if they are in the way. Another method is to make a couple of slits in the top of the opening, so the bag can be slid up over the main branch before it is stapled shut.
I prefer to just staple it below the stem, so at harvest time the bag doesn’t need to be removed. Just clip the grape cluster stem and you have a bag full of grapes. Knowing when to harvest is easy. Since most clusters will ripen at almost the same time, you can leave a few clusters not bagged and when they are ready, so are the bagged ones. If all of them are bagged, just cut one open every few days, take a peak and then staple it shut again.
As for protecting the blueberries and other small shrubs or dwarf fruit trees, netting on a frame can work very well. It may not be that pretty, but it is for a short period of time from when the fruit is almost ripe until it is fully ripe. You don’t need to use it all season long.
For dwarf trees with larger fruit such as apples, peaches, pears and plums, bagging can work well. Bagging can be done earlier on apples to protect the fruit from some insect and disease problems.
Bagging even works to protect some fruit from squirrels and chipmunks. They don’t seem to pay as much attention to the bagged fruit, but if they decide they want the fruit, the bag doesn’t offer much protection.