Blueberry Picking

[anethum]

I'm surprised that the posters who have their own blueberry bushes haven't reported any problems with birds eating their berries. When I was growing up we had a few blueberry bushes, but unless we covered the bushes with cheesecloth, the birds ate the entire crop. Even now at my own place, I have to cover my tomato plants with nylon netting (much better than old-style cheesecloth) or birds & squirrels will eat the majority of my crop. I don't have any blueberry bushes now, but I have some gooseberries, raspberries, & fig trees. Birds and squirrels eat mass quantities of the figs. I deliberately selected gooseberry varieties which aren't red when they're ripe, because red is a signal to birds that they're edible. Raspberries are the one berry which usually isn't eaten by birds here. I think it may be because raspberries are at the end of the prickly canes and there isn't anything to perch on, and squirrels can't climb up, either.

 

[powerplay]

I'm surprised that the posters who have their own blueberry bushes haven't reported any problems with birds eating their berries. When I was growing up we had a few blueberry bushes, but unless we covered the bushes with cheesecloth, the birds ate the entire crop. Even now at my own place, I have to cover my tomato plants with nylon netting (much better than old-style cheesecloth) or birds & squirrels will eat the majority of my crop. I don't have any blueberry bushes now, but I have some gooseberries, raspberries, & fig trees. Birds and squirrels eat mass quantities of the figs. I deliberately selected gooseberry varieties which aren't red when they're ripe, because red is a signal to birds that they're edible. Raspberries are the one berry which usually isn't eaten by birds here. I think it may be because raspberries are at the end of the prickly canes and there isn't anything to perch on, and squirrels can't climb up, either.

I have birdblock netting over one of my blueberry plants right now as the berries are getting close to ripe. My pink blueberries haven't been as attractive to the birds, but maybe they haven't figured it out yet.