What a helpful video. Your garden is so nicely groomed and cared for. Thank you for taking the time to help others.

That's actually a great idea. I noticed everyone has that problem when they use any kind of cage, and I can improve mine right from the start. I hope to get them started next week. I know I have a saved document about making swinging doors, made of pvc, that came from making one for a greenhouse, so I will search for that too. Bless, Sheila

Fantastic, now I can make these right away. 3/4" it is. I could not decide on the size of the pvc, and now I know what to do, thanks to you, and navajopa31 for finding you. Your grapes are really beautiful, and I can't wait to see them this year. Thanks again, Sheila

Great video! You are very resourceful. Your garden is looking very good. Nice to have fresh, blueberries and grapes. Take care!

Also I used 1/2" but my frames are only 36" high otherwise used your design. Nice! Found 1/2 and 3/4 I think they are called side Ls without the threaded side(saves a fitting) at Lowes. Used 2 Tees at bottom on each leg as they are .25 each if you buy a bag. The side Ls are 1.25 each. One more savings is buying the grey electrical pvc, about .30 cheaper per stick.

thanks, i love the idea of the pvc frame

Great video. I appreciate the extra detail you went into, especially the cost. I love my blueberries, but I try to raise food on the cheap, and MAN, when I heard the $60 cost, at first I was thinking it would be cheaper just supplementing my berry losses with store-bought organic blueberries. However, the PVC would last for many years so the economic return would balance out eventually. Until I think of a cheaper solution, I'll construct one of these for a single bush just to try it. I live in New England as well, so thanks for all of your efforts!

You're Correct! I tried my hand at growing a few things and found the stand a quarter mile down the road did it much better and cheaper.I grow flowers too and enjoy getting in the dirt from which I came. I have found that it's an addiction which gets very expensive and almost impossible to work 10 hour days and take care of an ever ongoing weeding which goes hand in hand with it. Good idea on the pvc- You gave me an idea for a cucumber trellis. Groundhog problems here with growing tomatoes.

Excellent Video ! Thanks for taking the time to make it.

Thanks. The robins were dropping off this years young to feed on my blueberries all day long so I put the net up and they gave up. They still show up out of habit in the morning but move on after trying for a free meal.

Beautiful!! Thank you for your advice!! 🙌🏻🦋❤️

Thank you so much for your video. I have a question in regard to the PVC lengths you used. Did you cut 8 - 54 INCH lengths; 8 - 34 INCH lengths and 4 - 29 1/2 INCH lengths?

Great demonstration

The basic netting Home Depot has is large enough for the bubble bees. I've seen them inside the netting and when they try to get out their wings hit the netting and it takes them a couple of attempts to get out but they manage. Row covering is solid but if you kept the end open during the day bees could get in.

Thanks. I'd like to have just one large cage I could walk into or put side doors on the ones I built. The netting still pulls berries off when I have lift it to get at them. In grape vineyards they put a net over the whole orchard. I asked and I guess birds don't like to fly under them so they don't have to be completely enclosed.

Great video, good to see the frames/netting. I have 4 bushes, in pots, and am looking for ways to add netting protection. There are lots of green berries, starting to turn blue, and I want to eat them vs. donating them to the birds.

your blueberries look very good. tfs

thanks for sharing with us

Thanks, I'm hoping to.

Hey thanks, i see this video was from 10 years ago, id love an update video of your garden..That frame idea was just what i was thinking, im going to try that..Down here in TN the Jumbo Berries are Titan, Krewer, and GA Giant..The soil here though in Cumberland, Tn is high PH ,and clay..As a result i spend about double the money on the hole, as i did the plants themselves..Pine nuggets, Canadian Spagmoss, Organic peat soil, Holy tone, Organic soil acidifiers, Soil sulfur,Black Kow manuer ect..With all that i have decided to keep my bluerry patch down to 25 plants...Anyways thanks again..

great job! i went to home depot and got all the required supplies! how long did it take you to finish one cage!?

I bought it at Home Depot. I've had people tell me they have purchased things at their local HD too that was not available in the store near me. I think some things are regional. Their website has it listed or you can probably find it on Amazon.

I live in New England as well and planted a few gooseberry plants last year. I saw your plant in this video and was wondering how old the plant was and what variety you were growing. Nice video by the way.

Thanks, I hope I get some too. Last year I saw robins charge the netting to get at the blueberries. My yard is like a robin daycare center now with the new fledgling birds eating everything in sight.

Regarding your desire to have a door in the side of the cage, I've been having the same thought, and I think I may have a solution, or at least a step in the right direction. I think a "dust barrier zipper" could be just the thing. Usually they are attached to a plastic tarp, but perhaps there is a way to use them with netting. On the Home Depot website, I currently see 3 brands - Homax, ZipWall, and Trimaco. I haven't decided on a specific product yet, but there may be a way to either attach one of the adhesive-backed varieties, or else to get one that is part of a clear tarp and just make the tarp one wall of the cage. It could be problematic in high winds, but perhaps it could be secured or modified in some way. Good luck!

What are you using for soil for your blueberries and how many plants for a 3x6 box? Thanks!

I ordered the Mars, Reliance and one other seedless grape but mine have seeds. Are your Reliance grapes seedless?

After I planted my Reliance grape I found another label in the pot that said Concord so I think it was mislabeled. It does have seeds but I think it is a Concord grape instead. My Frontenac is a wine grape and it also has seeds.

so jealous!!! Hoping to get grapes and black raspberries started next year since I'll finally have some land to do it.

It's worth a try. I'm not sure how much water they would collectively hold. I didn't glue mine together so I could take them apart. Whenever the city puts in a tree they have these large green bags upright next to the tree filled with water that slowly drips and waters the newly planted tree. Maybe something like that or a bucket with a small hole in the bottom would work too. Do you have varieties that grow good in hot weather?

Thank you!

Smart idea! would like to try it except those items in Australia cost too much (the costings is near per piece here).

Thank you

Thank you--very interesting! I think I will make a smaller cage for 1 bush and see how that goes!

I had a bird eating the blossoms last year so my netting will go out early. Do the bees have issues with the netting?

@wansbek1968 I didn't know that birds would go after the flowers too. I had a couple of robin families around eating my raspberries and I've seen the robins charge at the net to stretch it and get blueberries normally out of reach. Once one even got in and I could not figure out how. They are very persistent.

Thank you.

Thanks

Hi, I has a chipmunk caught in the blueberry net once and I put on some gloves and untangled it and the next day it was in the net again and frantically nawd the bark almost all the way around a blueberry bush. Then I thought if I got bit I would have to get a rabies shot just for piece of mind. Not worth it . Maybe you can did a barrier deeper in the ground in addition to netting. I was suprised how effective the motion sensor sprinklers are. Got rid of a pesky racoon on my grapes last year

Hmm? I wonder though if you just end up with more birds around to go after the blueberries too. I already have only about a third of the backyard that gets full sun all day so a 30ft tree kind of big. It is a lot of work and expense for blueberries but you could say that about anything you want to grow on your own. Between critters and bugs it's a wonder anything ends up in the produce section. If anything it gives you a better appreciation of what it takes to get fresh produce.

It looks like you did not cement the PVC into the adaptors which I guess means you can take it all apart later but probably not as stable. Where did you buy the bird block netting? Our Home Depot did not have.

New England Gardening Thanks for the video on how to make the cage. 4/8/2018

great video , enjoy your blueberries : P

I'd like to just have a larger enclosure that I would freely walk under. Supposedly birds don't like to fly or venture under things and they just put nets overhead in the vineyards and don't completely enclose them..

I haven't glued it together so I could take it apart. It might be better just to drip irrigate blueberries because I think having wet leaves on any plant helps introduce diseases.

Great video

I do need to set up some rain barrels.

I have problems with chipmunks eating them. they just tunneled right under my netting. I've been battling chipmunks for 3 years and despite ridding myself of about 50 a year. They just keep showing up and destroying most of my garden (strawberries, raspberries...) Any tips. I wish I could get a cat but my daughter is allergic. Great videos. thanks

Hi, I think they are 15 to 20 years old. Sorry I don't know the variety. I didn't plant them myself. The critters really like them so have to put a net over them again.

After you mentioned Reliance I went and bought a vine from Stark Bros so I know I have Reliance now.

Make sure you build your frame large enough to keep netting off plants... birds can sit on it and "eat through"... plants also get tangled. More recently, I've been using *shade cloth*/*row cover*.... it seems that the birds in my area won't bother if they don't *see* the berries... when I was using the netting, they would work very assiduously to find a way in... but even when the shade cloth didn't cover the plants completely, very few birds ate berries.

How much did he spend ? How many years did it last? What happened during ice storms?

What were the lengths and number of each lengths you used? Want to build one myself! Great vid!

Cats for ground vermin...yes. Here I was drawing inflatable owls and aluminum mesh on the ground before settling on snakes; still, better bell the netting in case the cats think it is Feline Ninja tryout season. Robins, singed by 307K, and their 4-wide strollers are mangy this year!

Hi, I like to garden. It's a hobby that costs time and money like any other interest or endeavor.It's nice to have a product at the end for all the hard work but its getting there that's enjoyable too. I have flowers I grow. Should I turn them under and leave that to the professionals? I do think there will be a hoarders episode on gardeners someday though. It cost you time, a computer, and the cost of internet access to comment. Maybe you should leave it to professionals.Thanks for the sub.

That must be why the robins go crazy over my gooseberries. They have a lot of water content. I know some birds wet their feathers to bring back water to the nest. I think doves do that.

Planning to build similar structure for my berries, had a thought. I'm in Australia so fruiting season is hot - I'll use pipes as a watering system as well as a netting structure. I'll run a few pipes across at ground level with small holes drilled in them to act as a drip system. Then cut a hole a few feet of the ground in one of the verticals. A few minutes of the hose, the pipes will fill with water to slowly drip onto the soil. Should only cost a few more dollars for the extra cross pieces.

have you noticed any degradation of the PVC yet? Looking to build a trellis/tunnel kind of thing, but dont want to waste money if I have to replace it every couple of years(which would still be fairly cheap)

Cool vid, made me think about something I was missing in my project. Google Woody Hyezmar’s Woodworking Bible, I think it was there that I got the originals.

Save your body and get a pvc cutter at HD/Lowes for $12. Cuts pipe in a second with no mess.

I need to send you images of my grapes and maybe you can show me how to prune them properly.

Thanks, There is room for improvement. I'd like to put a door lengthwise so I could just open it and get at the blueberries.

Sinonetting manufacture bird netting

you need to use rainwater when watering them

thanks for the video … i like the useage of velcro, but dang … when you put a title on a video … please get to the point? 2 minutes until you even mention blueberries. that said, is there any reason you don't just make legs and let it stand on ground instead of having a pipe length all along the footprint? pretty expensive also … wow, trying to grow blueberries is not cheap!

One way is to plant a mulberry tree (not too close to the house though because they're messy). This provides the birds with all the fruit they need and is safer for them than to risk raiding your blueberry bushes. Mulberry trees grow up to 30 ft high. You can eat the berries too if you want. Another method is to get a couple outdoor cats. Netting and cages are just too expensive, are unattractive in the garden, and not worth the labor imho.

If the gooseberries are like English they make fantastic pies and jam, I would let the birds have them. Make a n yet cage for them too.

If you are not interested in gardening, then don't watch or comment on the video. The pint of berries you are paying for could be loaded with pesticides. So, maybe you've had too many chemicals in your brain and that is why you think this way? It cost me $18 bucks to get 2 pairs of different blueberry bushes. I used compost from crap around my yard I collected the year before. I get way more than a few pints of berries a year now. These bushes will probably produce fruit after I am gone.

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All that trouble and expense and battling the bugs, birds, animals, soil, and have to toil all summer just to have a $2dollar pint of berries? or grapes?? Just so you can say you grew them and they taste better?? [look at my photo] Has to be a sickness on you guys part. Let the commercial people grow them is my motto. I ain't payin' $175 bucks for a pint of berries once you count your time and labor, etc.

Get to the point.

Too much time spent on your grapes, goose berries and tomatoes. I came to this video for blueberry info. Shame on you.