Protection from/sharing with wildlife

From the looks of it, I am going to have a huge raspberry harvest this year.  That is, if the birds don't wipe it out.  I am willing to share a section or two, but not all of them!  

Bird netting has not been effective; plus I've had to rescue chipmunks that have gotten caught in the netting.   I am thinking of buying row covers and blanketing the raspberry bushes with them  before they begin to ripen/peak.  Attaching it to the bushes somehow so they stay put.  It will be a challenge, for sure.

Any other suggestion?  Will row covers cause warmer, humid conditions that can encourage disease?

Thanks!

Try letting the section you want to sacrifice to the birds go past ripe, and hopefully the birds would focus on these.

Meanwhile pay close attention to the remainder and harvest the moment they become ripe.

I would be looking forwards to a good blueberry harvest this year, but my resident blackbird has already started taking any berries that are remotely blue! I have bird cherries nearby, but she seems to prefer the blueberries! I'd really like not to have netting, and if as Susan says that wasn't effective either, there is no point going to that trouble!

blueberry patch on Skye

I gave up on netting last year on my blueberry hedge. One suggestion I got and will probably use next year is a tunnel made of hog panels and a pool leaf net, which are porous, big, and plastic.

Like this

https://www.coversandall.com/swimming-pool-covers/leaf-net-pool-covers/rectangular-pool-covers-leaf-net-p

      Update!
       Short version:  I used barrier (fine mesh netting) and distraction (pumpkin seeds), which worked well.
      Long version:  For my black raspberries, which ripened first, I used used some ultra fine mesh netting on them, but was foiled: cardinals had built a nest in the thorny thickets, so the got many berries from behind.  Good for them!  I use fine mesh rather than bird netting; past experience showed me that it didn't work and occasionally trapped small animals (like chipmunks) that I had to rescue.
        I was away for the first week wineberries started to ripen, so the birds feasted, but then I used a 10-ft x 16.5 ft  (3 m x 5m) of the fine mesh netting over the front of a large portion of my berries.  I left the higher areas that only can be reached with a ladder and a few 3-4 ft (1 meter) portion bare.  I also have a 2 lb (1Kg) bag of pumpkin seeds in the shell which I ordered by accident (I needed shelled), so each morning I'd scatter some to bribe/distract them from the berries.  It worked; we've been sharing well, and the birds love the seeds.
    Next comes late wineberries (they ripen later due to less sun) and blackberries.  Right now I have about a 1quart/liter of berries and expect to have another quart when the season is done.  That's from my own property;  I also plan on foraging.
        It may not sound like much to people with huge swaths of land, but I am thrilled.  

Thank you for the update Susan!

Susan Mené wrote:   I use fine mesh rather than bird netting; past experience showed me that it didn't work and occasionally trapped small animals (like chipmunks) that I had to rescue

That is one of the reasons I'm unsure of the use of netting - I've heard that things like slow worms can get stuck in netting of the right (wrong!) size. So the stuff you use is more like an insect mesh?
Unfortunately my blueberries are more in zone 3/4 than 1/2 so distracting the birds with alternate feed (since the cherries don't seem to be enough!) is not very practical for me.
I'm still thinking of netting, just for the berry season, but need to work out what size will be optimum. It is a bit of a compromise, but life is sometimes like that. If I had infinite money I'd maybe go for a stainless steel wire mesh!

I have used light weight row cover on my blueberries for the last few of years and it has worked well.  I think it is a matter of out sight, out of mind...

I only put the cover on just as the berries start to ripen and the birds begin to pick them off.  I've used a couple of different weights and lighter is better.  I haven't noticed any disease issues, but windy conditions have caused branches to break.

Mark Griffin wrote:I have used light weight row cover on my blueberries for the last few of years and it has worked well.  I think it is a matter of out sight, out of mind...

I only put the cover on just as the berries start to ripen and the birds begin to pick them off.  I've used a couple of different weights and lighter is better.  I haven't noticed any disease issues, but windy conditions have caused branches to break.

Totally agree with "out of sight, out of mind"!

Mark Griffin wrote:I have used light weight row cover on my blueberries for the last few of years and it has worked well.  I think it is a matter of out sight, out of mind...

I only put the cover on just as the berries start to ripen and the birds begin to pick them off.  I've used a couple of different weights and lighter is better.  I haven't noticed any disease issues, but windy conditions have caused branches to break.

This is the best I can hope for. Right now, I just try to get to them early and frequently and eat some things under ripe as it seems that the creatures all get them 1 minute before fully ripe.

Long term is to plant and have so many good things to eat that I am bound to get some of it. Also the things that eat my things will also be eaten by other things. Keeps everyone on their toes I think.

Somewhat unrelated and related to...overabundance?

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/452/poultry-slam-2011/act-three-1

Mark Griffin wrote:I have used light weight row cover on my blueberries for the last few of years and it has worked well.  I think it is a matter of out sight, out of mind...

Hmm, that reminds me I've used old net curtains in the past on currant bushes remarkably successfully....

J Katrak wrote:Long term is to plant and have so many good things to eat that I am bound to get some of it. Also the things that eat my things will also be eaten by other things. Keeps everyone on their toes I think.

That was my thought too, but the birds don't seem to have an understanding of 'fair share'! and they are more on the spot.

Mind you, if I could draw I would make a cartoon, with two birds in a tree looking at a human picking berries and one bird says to the other bird - "It's the same every year, as soon as the berries are ripe - the humans come and strip the bushes!"

Nancy Reading wrote:

Mark Griffin wrote:I have used light weight row cover on my blueberries for the last few of years and it has worked well.  I think it is a matter of out sight, out of mind...

Hmm, that reminds me I've used old net curtains in the past on currant bushes remarkably successfully....

J Katrak wrote:Long term is to plant and have so many good things to eat that I am bound to get some of it. Also the things that eat my things will also be eaten by other things. Keeps everyone on their toes I think.

That was my thought too, but the birds don't seem to have an understanding of 'fair share'! and they are more on the spot.

Mind you, if I could draw I would make a cartoon, with two birds in a tree looking at a human picking berries and one bird says to the other bird - "It's the same every year, as soon as the berries are ripe - the humans come and strip the bushes!"

HAHAHAHA!  
Whenever I pick berries, I constantly think the birds are thinking that.  That's why I leave some areas for them and leave the pumpkin seed offerings.

Not my blueberries, though.  I have 3 bushes and I only get a handful.

Why do people report bad results from bird netting?  I've had good results with it, provided I weight it down against the ground on all sides of the tree or bush I'm protecting....mostly against squirrels which go after fruit as bad as any bird!  Sometimes birds will land on the net and peck through it, but that only means the fruit right against the net.  I've also found the netting very handy in a new garden startup now 2 or 3 times, before permanent fencing is put up, to protect garden beds from deer and rabbits...

I often hear of netting just being draped over plants and not encapsulating the fruit.

Alder Burns wrote:Why do people report bad results from bird netting?  I've had good results with it, provided I weight it down against the ground on all sides of the tree or bush I'm protecting....mostly against squirrels which go after fruit as bad as any bird!  Sometimes birds will land on the net and peck through it, but that only means the fruit right against the net.  I've also found the netting very handy in a new garden startup now 2 or 3 times, before permanent fencing is put up, to protect garden beds from deer and rabbits...

Hmmm....
For me it's because:
1.  OOPS! I clearly put it on wrong;  I did just drape it over the plants
2.  I felt horrible about the chipmunk that I had to rescue from being tangled in it

Well I found the net curtains, and have now wrapped some of the berry laden bushes:



It looks a bit like a modern art installation !

I used clothes pegs to clip the tops of the curtains together and fix them to the bush and rocks at the bottom to weigh it down. Given that the birds have easy access to the rest of the bushes I'm hoping for at least a fair share now. Maybe next year I will do something more complete over the whole area. I'd rather it didn't look so .... synthetic, albeit noone but me sees this.

Success! The net curtains are doing the trick!
I've seen virtually no ripe berries on the bushes not covered, but this is what I found today! The curtains even went through the storm we had last week with only a little repairs to the pegs, and a couple of stones needed replacing. I picked about a pound of berries from two of the bushes, which still have most of the berries yet to ripen. The third covered bush is not yet starting to go ripe. This is the first year that I have had more than a couple of dozen berries, so I'm sorry birds, You're taking more than your fair share and things have to change!

Fantastic news. Oh, birds.

I have an interesting question:
Blackberries are producing this year like never before but the birds don't seem interested at all.  Free food, birdies! What's up with that?

On a different crop, I thought the birds were going for my peas and fava beans in a big way - crowds of them flew out of the bed this week. However there seems to be just a bit of mouse damage on the peas. I think the small birds are going for the fat hen; which I never planted but grew well as volunteers! It has a nice head of seed on, which I was contemplating as a 'free' crop, but the birds are really welcome to.

The pigeons picked off most of my cherry and plum blossoms, so I got very little fruit set on my trees;  however, what little there was on my cherry tree I draped with a tablecloth and some napkins, just as they were starting to turn yellow/orange.  I don't think the birds could even see the fruit (clipped the cloths on with clothes pegs), but they definitely couldn't reach it.