Protecting the forest garden from birds

Now, before you lay into me about feeding the birds I do. Boy do I. We have loads of chokecherry and gooseberry bushes and some crabapple I've no intention of protecting. The birds are fine.

I am investing huge amounts of money and energy into a small forest garden area. This area is located between my house and our barn. It's fully fenced with 5' fence on 3 sides and 3' fence on the remaining side. I am getting a lot of bushes delivered and I want to protect them when they do fruit from the birds. So, I was going to plant them all in a line next to the 3' fence so I could net from the fence down to the ground easily. Then I got to thinking about all the trees and other things and started thinking I might want to net the whole area.

We have a lot of telephone poles. I'm thinking one in the middle of the garden and then I can string wire along the top of all the posts of the current fence for the sides. I'll get measurements when I'm home. I measured it before I just don't really remember but I suspect a 100'x100' net would cover the entire thing.

I'm thinking I might have to extend the posts up a bit seeings as my hubs and I are tall. He's 6'2" I'm 5'8". I'm just not sure.

You might want to give it a few years and see if you really need yo net.  Because you have the crabs/chokecherries/gooseberry around, birds may not bother the other bushes so much.  

I used to put netting on my cherry tree and currant bushes,  but I stopped because it was a pain and then lo and behold the birds barely bother my preferred fruits anyway because they'd rather stuff themselves up high in the big mulberry tree.

I was thinking along the same lines - wait and see if this is actually a problem. Also keep in mind that the pollinators (which you need in there) will be laying their eggs on your trees and shrubs. When those eggs hatch, that’s bird food. Those larva eat the foliage, and/or the fruit, so if birds can’t come in an eat up a good portion of those larva, your trees and shrubs may still be devastated by little munchers, especially in the early years of getting established. Wait and see.

Sorry, I should have clarified, this garden isn't new. I've been adding things to this area for years. I have had a few plum trees produce and a cherry tree. I never got to eat any of the fruit. It was gone before it was fully ripe. This year, however, I'm really investing in this area. These things WILL survive by golly. So I'm composting and mulching and buying a few things I want to add and composting and mulching them. Hopefully in a year or two this will have an impact and I'll have harvestable fruit. When that time comes I do not doubt that the birds will eat it. I know they will. They eat everything. Rats with wings I tell ya.

So it needs protecting.

Turns out it's larger than I thought at 130'x90'. I'm trying to decide. Do the net from the existing fence up to a central telephone pole or put telephone poles on all 4 corners and one in the middle to net from. Hmm.

The bushes all arrived. Some of them came with fruit. The aronia is loaded. So I'm protecting the blueberry and waiting to see how long it takes for the birds to notice the aronia berries.

You will most certainly need some protection, though I wouldn't keep the birds out all year they can do good work eating bugs in the spring and autumn. For me I find they eat the redcurrants first and they can eat every single berry from 10 huge 5ft tall bushes just before they turn red, then they strip the cherry I can normally get some blackcurrants while they are busy with those two. Goosberries they ignore entirely. and I have so many strawberries (1600 plants) that with red painted rocks and cats on patrol I only get a couple of kilos of bird damaged fruit each year.

To get a few cherries for myself I put old potato bags round some of the branches, not a single cherry survives outside of the netted branches. birds do not share, they eat everything and leave you nothing.

Skandi Rogers wrote:You will most certainly need some protection, though I wouldn't keep the birds out all year they can do good work eating bugs in the spring and autumn. For me I find they eat the redcurrants first and they can eat every single berry from 10 huge 5ft tall bushes just before they turn red, then they strip the cherry I can normally get some blackcurrants while they are busy with those two. Goosberries they ignore entirely. and I have so many strawberries (1600 plants) that with red painted rocks and cats on patrol I only get a couple of kilos of bird damaged fruit each year.

To get a few cherries for myself I put old potato bags round some of the branches, not a single cherry survives outside of the netted branches. birds do not share, they eat everything and leave you nothing.

I just know myself as a lazy person that having something up permanently is the only way to make sure it will be there.

I share your experience with the chokecherries though. I just watch them all hopping around in the bushes eating them before they even ripen. The best part of this, and why my husband advised leaving the aronia alone right now, is that they are planting things all over the place. We have gooseberries and chokecherries growing all over. I dig them up from the undesirable spots and move them. It's pretty nice.