When to Cover Blueberry Bushes: How to Protect Blueberries from Birds (with Mesh Bags/Netting)
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| Bird proofing blueberries is as easy as mesh drawstring bags! These bags allow you to maximize your harvest and minimize losses. |
When to Cover Blueberries: How to Protect Blueberries from Birds (with Netting)
Do you have an issue with the birds getting to the blueberries before you can? It's not fun at all when you've watched those blueberries slowly ripen over the course of several weeks, only for the birds to pluck them from the bush right before you get the chance to taste them.
Let me show you how we fixed that issue here in our gardens- it's surprisingly simple, cheap, and quick! You might not realize just how many blueberries that the birds are taking from your bushes until you get your first full harvest.
Let's introduce you to the mesh bags that I use; they even have a drawstring, keeping them in place even during high winds. This method has significantly impacted our blueberry yields in our home garden, greatly increasing them.
(Here's the Amazon link to some bags that are nearly identical/are identical to mine, as I purchased mine years ago and the listing is gone:
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.)
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| Glass bowl of freshly harvested blueberries from our family garden. |
Why Are Birds Are Such a Problem for Blueberry Harvests?
Birds absolutely love blueberries, just as much as we do! Unfortunately, they're happy to take those blueberries right as they darken; a day or two before people would harvest them. Birds are excellent at harvesting berries as soon as they become palatable. They're very smart creatures. This means that, if you wait for the blueberries to be ripe enough for your tastes, they will be taken by the birds first. If you don't have a substantial number of blueberry bushes, you're not going to win this battle without some sort of help. For me, that's bagging the plants.
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| A handful of freshly harvested blueberries from our family's backyard garden. Blueberry season is a favorite here! |
Netting is also a wonderful solution, and it's likely cheaper to use netting if you have long rows of blueberry bushes. The downside to netting is that birds can still climb into the bush from below; therefore, you will still have losses. They won't be anywhere near as severe as blueberry harvest losses are with unprotected plants, though.
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| Blueberries in various stages of ripening- blue, purple, pink, and yellow green. |
Drawstring Mesh Bags: My Favorite (and the Most Effective Way I've Found) to Protect the Blueberry Harvest
The bags I use are a simple mesh and have a drawstring at the bottom. That drawstring allows you to secure the bag around the bottom of the bush. I don’t pull them super tight, just tight enough that a storm isn’t going to blow them off. We don’t have any issues with birds climbing up into the bag and into the bush because the bushes are fairly large at this point and grow in different directions. Here's the Amazon Affiliate link to the bags that are nearly identical to mine (the ones pictured below): https://amzn.to/3YrUwlb
(As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.)
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| I used two bags for this particular blueberry bush. |
These bags will stay on our blueberry bushes until it’s time to harvest. Sometimes I’ll uncover them, harvest, cover them back up, and wait for the rest of the berries to ripen. It can take a couple of weeks for the berries to ripen.
These bags are wonderful because they allow both light and air to pass through. Your blueberry bush still gets plenty of airflow and sunlight; you don’t have to worry about lack of light or fungal disease. If the bush is mashed tightly into the bag, airflow could become an issue, but our blueberry bushes are fairly spindly and not overly dense, so it hasn’t been a concern for us. If you have a bushier blueberry plant, that could be an issue to consider. In that case, you could use separate bags or a larger tree bag, which I’ll likely look into next year since our primary plant is getting pretty large.
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| Mesh drawstring bags allow air, water, and sunlight to permeate through the fabric. This keeps the blueberry plants healthy while protecting your harvest. |
Timing Is Everything: Don't Cover Blueberry Bushes before Pollination or During Ripening
When covering blueberries, timing is everything. If you cover too early, you’re going to exclude pollinators, and they won’t be able to get to your blueberry flowers. That will significantly impact your harvest, as the flowers need to be pollinated. If you cover the bushes too late, you’ll probably lose some blueberries before you get them protected.
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| This is a great stage to cover blueberries at: when flowers are dingy, and petals are falling. You'll see itty, bitty berries developing. |
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| This is a great stage to cover blueberries at: when flowers are dingy, and petals are falling. You'll see itty, bitty berries developing. |
You want to wait until most of your blueberries have been pollinated and have started to develop. I usually wait until about 10 to 20% of the flowers are still remaining. As you can see on my blueberry bush (see the YouTube video below or images above) I don’t have many flowers left. Only a few flowers still look to be in good shape. Most of the remaining flowers are tattered or brown-tinged. You can tell they’re old and that the flowers have likely already been pollinated. This is exactly what you’re looking for when preparing to net or bag your blueberry plants.
Important Tips When Covering Blueberry Bushes with Mesh Drawstring Bags
The process can be a little tricky with larger plants. As you slip the bag over the plant, be mindful of branches and twigs; they can snag the bag. You might lose some berries if branches break, or you could even poke a hole in the mesh. I actually haven't had this happen yet; the twigs tend to break before the mesh does. I'm fairly careful though.
You could use twine the tie the plant together before you place the bag over the plant, compressing it; this will allow the bag to slide over the plant more easily. After the bag is over the blueberry bush, you can untie the twine and secure the drawstring. You know how live holiday trees are netted at the stores to compress them, making them easier to handle and transport? That's the idea!
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| You can see the opening at the bottom right of the mesh bag. There are multiple stems here, but it is tight enough that the bag stays in place without causing fungal or bacterial issues. |
When you secure the drawstring, you don't want it so tight that it is snug against the trunk or stem. This could retain water and encourage fungal or bacterial disease. Instead, just tighten it enough that a bird can't hop in, and so that a storm cannot blow the bag off of the plant.
Once the bag is secured, be sure to tuck the drawstring into the bag. You don't want to hit that string with your mower or weed trimmer! It can be quite long.
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| Do you see how long that drawstring is? You don't want to leave this string out like this, or you might hit it with a mower or weed trimmer. |
Final Thoughts & Discussion:
Overall, this is our favorite way to keep birds out of our blueberries. If you’re having issues with birds, this method will solve it quickly. The bags are cheap, easy to use, effective, and reusable. You can also use them with other crops outside of blueberry season; they're an excellent physical barrier for controlling squash vine borers. These are actually really useful to have on hand!
They can be a little tricky to get on at first because the branches can catch on the mesh, but that only adds a few minutes to the installation; it's no big deal. If we had a much larger blueberry garden, I might consider swapping over to a netting situation; but right now, mesh bags suit our needs the best!
Discussion Topics:
- How long have you been growing blueberries?
- What has been your biggest hurdle with growing blueberries? Is it plant management, or is it producing a sizable harvest?
- What growing method are you using with your blueberry plants: Containers? Fruit hedge? Food forest?
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| Bird proofing blueberries is as easy as mesh drawstring bags! These bags allow you to maximize your harvest and minimize losses. |
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| Blueberries ripening on a blueberry bush during June (blueberry season.) |
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