Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[gtaus]

I'm wondering about making cages to go around my blue berry bushes. Birds get all the berries just before they get ripe. I wonder if the birds that are the thieves are small enough to get through chicken wire...?

Here is something I found online...

Many of the berry bandits—like robins, sparrows, catbirds, and cedar waxwings—can easily slip through standard chicken wire if the mesh is 1" or larger. Even juvenile birds or smaller species like finches can squeeze through ¾" mesh if they're motivated by ripe blueberries.

I have only seen 1- and 2-inch poultry wire locally. But maybe it could be special ordered from a big box store? Another thought is to take the 1-inch chicken wire and add a second layer on top, staggering the wire, making it ~1/2-inch mesh?

Personally, I'd avoid the bird netting if you start trapping birds. Nobody wants to see dead birds in netting. Having said that, I have bird netting on top of my chicken run and never had any trapped birds. But the mesh on my bird netting allows small birds to get in and out. I just want to keep out the hawks and eagles.

Of course, hardware cloth would work, but it's pricey.

I tried to grow strawberries out in my garden. Most of the berries got eaten by critters long before they were ripe enough for me to harvest. That was before I had even made the pallet wood protective cages, maybe I'd have better luck now. I lost almost everything to birds, squirrels and chipmunks. All in all, I think my strawberry patch cost me about $1.00 per strawberry I actually harvested and ate. So, I gave up and planted other stuff in that bed. But now that I have the protective cage design down, I might try it again.

My strawberry plants were probably less than one foot tall. Easy enough to build a small protective cage for that. Even with hardware cloth it would not be too expensive. How tall do your blueberries grow? I imagine that will be a big factor in whatever protection you use.

 

[gtaus]

If the stacking cages get pushed around by Bambi, the plant might be broken.
A short piece of wood sticking up inside the corners probably would keep in place.

I don't think the deer would bother trying to push off a top cage to get to the plants, but that is why I mentioned tying the cages together with a rope. The deer have not (yet) tried pushing off my cages that are just sitting on top of the raised beds.

I have thought of adding additional boards to the framing to hold the cages to each other, or maybe even to the raised bed.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[gtaus]

sorry for the deer trouble. your growing season is almost done so deer did you a favour. some people chop pepper tops so that peppers can ripen faster. I did the same with my only 2 pumpkin vines that have a pumpkin each.

I did not know that. Thanks. The thought of deer doing me a favor never occurred to me!

But like I said, all the peppers were below that top growth safely protected by the cage and fencing. I did not lose any actual peppers, just the green tops. I was afraid that chewing off the tops of the plants would harm them. But I guess you could be right in that a stressed plant often fruits earlier and more in response. That will be a good lesson learned.

Answer....

 

[Sally PB]

How tall do your blueberries grow? I imagine that will be a big factor in whatever protection you use.

They can be 5-6 feet tall. So I'd have to make doors to open, as I couldn't lift them off.

hmmmm. Dutch door style... the top could hinge down... hmmm...