How to Cover Blueberries

The blueberries are ripening quick in this warm, sunny weather we are getting! This means fresh berries are right around the corner and summer is in full swing! It also means the birds have noticed that there is a bunch of free food in easy reach... So it is time to cover the bushes with some netting to protect the blueberries.

We have a simple system that is fairly easy to put up in the summer and take down in the winter. This flexibility works for us and lets us maintain our little row of bushes easiest. We have had it in place for a few years now.

The first thing to do is pound a short length of PVC pipe into the ground at regular intervals on either side of the row. These stay in the ground all year. They serve as the inserts for the pipes that arch over the row...

We use a length of slightly smaller PVC pipe, preferably one with some flexibility, to insert into the pipe in the ground on either side of the row. This will form an arch over the bushes. Do this down the whole row, ours are a few feet apart. (Notice we had to extend some of the pipes as the bushes got taller...)

At this point, the row looks like this.

After this we take some fencing wire and run it down either side of the arches, looping it around each PVC arch. This gives the arches stability and also keeps the net from sagging too much in-between.

On either end we also have a fence post to tie off the wire (and eventually the netting too).

See how we loop the wire around each arch...

Now loop the end on the fence post and you are ready for the next part.

Next you put the netting over this arch/wire structure. We unravel ours from a board because we wrap it up each winter and then use the same netting the next summer.

At this point, the hard part comes in. We use some heavy metal pipe to keep the edges of the netting down on the ground. What good is netting if birds can just go under it? We loop the netting around each length of pipe. Be sure to use pipe that isn't too long in length because it gets harder to loop into the netting, the longer the pipe is. A good tip is to lay out the pipes first!

Looping the netting...

The pipes tuck the edges in nicely.

After this, just secure the two ends and you have a good flexible netting system! 

When we want to pick the berries it is possible to take one side and flip it over or you can crawl under the netting too. If you find any tears in your net, it is important to fix them because the birds will find it!

As you can see we already had some bird damage!

We also might need to consider another system or larger arches next year because the bushes are getting bigger!

Hope this was useful! Feel free to comment if you need more information!


- Dan