Melissa gave you a sneak peak at a future project when she posted this picture:

We needed something to keep the birds off of the blueberry and raspberry plants. After seeing a few of videos posted on the internet of other gardeners dealing with similar problems, I came up with a plan.

We decided on using 4 poles to hold up some bird netting.  We bought 2 ten feet long by 1.25 inch thick PVC pipes and 1 ten foot long by 1 inch thick PVC pipe. The 1 inch pipe fit perfectly inside the 1.25 inch pipe.  The plan was to have 4 five foot long corner posts and 4 two foot long stakes that would stick out of the ground to hold up the corner posts.

You saw here where Melissa made a foam roller out of two feet of the 1 inch pipe. So that left 8 feet of the 1 inch pipe. I cut the eight foot pipe in half to make 2 four-foot sections.

Then I cut those in half again, but this time I cut them with 45 degree angles so they would go into the ground easier.

Then, I cut the 1.25 inch pipes in half to get the 2 five foot posts. After cutting the posts, we were going to need a way to attach the bird netting. So I took a 1/8 drill bit and drilled holes through the top side of the posts.

We were ready to go put it up in the garden, but first we had to plant the berries. Once the berries were planted (Melissa will tell you about that tomorrow), I went to work on putting the stakes in the ground. I used a sledge hammer and a scrap piece of wood. I used the wood so the stake wouldn’t get beat up as I hit it with the hammer.

After all four stakes were in the ground, I slid the corner posts over the stakes and then it was time to put the netting on.

 

Here’s how all four posts looked in the ground.

Now we have been using a partially unrolled roll of bird netting to keep the birds away from the berries while they lived on the deck. We straightened out what was being used currently on the deck and measured out how much we needed.

I used the shovel length as the measuring stick. The long side between the posts were about 1.5 shovel lengths long and the short sides were about a shovel and a shovel head length.  Add up the 4 sides and we needed about 5.25-5.5 shovel lengths of bird netting and used scissors to cut it.

Next we each took an end of the netting, stretched it tight, and wrapped it around the perimeter of the posts.  I used zip ties on the top of each post to hold the netting in place.

I was thrilled with Melissa stopping to take photos instead of helping.

We also used zip ties to hold the net together where the two ends met at the top and bottom.

 

I also zip-tied the back to the fence.

For the leftover (there was leftover because the netting was 14 feet wide and the posts were only 5 feet tall) on the top, we rolled it up and zip-tied it in place. We have plans to “fancy this up” in the future, but it’s doing the job fine for now. We were in a hurry to get this done since our blueberries are getting close to ready.

 

Plus, it isn’t that noticeable from across the yard.

Because Melissa was inside the netting, there aren’t many pictures of this process, but she did lose a bobby pin to the netting. I saw it when we were rolling up the extra on the top and pulled it out to use to hold the entrance shut.

So far, it’s doing exactly what we need it to: keep the birds away from our berries.

 

Look, we even have proof that it’s working!

We plan to modify this in the future to make it more house shaped with a roof by adding some 45 degree connectors and angle them at the center where they will meet at a center point. We might even paint the PVC, and get some black zip ties so they are less noticeable.

I also secretly plan to use the corner posts as polish horseshoe poles after we harvest all the berries.

What do you think? Ever had to come up with a clever solution to keep birds/dogs/wildlife out of something? Let’s heat it!