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Birds, chipmunks etc eating blueberries

When do you have to cover your blueberries to prevent birds from eating the fruit? How long do you get blueberries for? 2 weeks? In other words to get fruit how long do I have to cover the plants each year? From my limited experience birds do not eat fruit until it is close to ripe or ripe. Tiny, hard a green are safe.


I also have red squirrels and chipmunks.

Comments (4)

  • 5 years ago

    I've had pretty good luck with chicken wire cages. The mice burrow under them, but that's usually in the winter, to eat the bark around the base. But my plants were medium sized, not the bigger bushes.

  • 5 years ago

    I've used garden netting for birds. Lightweight. You can actually pick blueberries through it, but it's no problem to slip under it. Throw it on in the spring, and haul it off in the fall. Chipmunks are another deal entirely. I guess you could try anchoring the netting to the ground, but any rodent would be smart enough to get under it.

  • 5 years ago
    last modified: 5 years ago

    I've got four different varieties of blueberry: Berkeley, Jersey, Northland, and a native northern high bush. Each bush probably ripens for about a month or two. Berkeley ripens in throughout July. Jersey ripens from mid-July through August. Northland and native ripen a bit earlier than Berkeley, so mid-June to mid-July if the birds haven't eaten them all; those two bushes are more for pollination and looks, though as they are near the edge of the woods.

    I haven't had much issue with rodent types stealing fruit, but I do cage the smaller plants against deer and bunnies eating the branches. We've got chipmunks, grey squirrels, rabbits, deer, and plenty of other wild life, though I don't see many red squirrels. Maybe they're too full from eating our tomatoes to make trying to climb blueberry canes worth the trouble.

    Northland and native in their cages:


    (Pea trellis around the native between the shadow and single daffodil, Northland between the daffodils outgrowing it's cage) They're kind-of hard to see since they blend into the woods until they leaf out.

    Berkeley and Jersey:


    (Berkeley's in the bed that needs to be weeded on the left; it has a bunny cage. Jersey, in the middle bed, is big enough not to need a cage anymore.) It would be nice if the weather would cooperate for me to weed this garden.

  • 5 years ago
    last modified: 5 years ago

    I make the circular cages with either wire fencing or chicken wire, and then close with twist ties which I can easily open and shut if I need to get in to the plant for tending or picking berries. I've read wobbly enclosures deter smaller critters from climbing them, which is why I am switching to all chicken wire this year. As for the burrowing under . . . This had not been the problem with my berry bushes, at least in the growing season. Occasionally during the winter I will find bark damage, but not that much with the blueberries. More of a problem for my flowering trees.

    I will say that we kill some of the chipmunks with rat traps. Only when their numbers get excessive. We also go after the squirrels with a slingshot. We give them lots of habitat, but we are protective of our areas too. Fences seem best for keeping out bunnies, but oddly we don't have much of a rabbit problem. Somehow I think the local predators do a better job with them . . .

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