11 Hints for Netting your Fruit Trees

1. You will not get away with un-netted trees and birds don’t share. I moved here thinking that if I planted enough trees the birds can’t eat it all. They can and if there are not the birds, there are possums or bats. If you area doesn’t have a lot of parrots, don’t worry they will move in. Citrus are the only fruit which is not eaten so far, but how long?
2. Netting single trees is a nightmare. Even if you have the expensive tailored nets. Nets touching the branches don’t help, because the birds hop up and down until they get to the fruit.
3. Birds don’t stop at fruit they love berries and adore nuts.
4. Colour doesn’t help either, they eat yellow plums and green kiwi and black berries. It is only a matter of time until they find out.
5. What you need is a fully netted orchard, so keep all your fruit trees together.
6. Plan generously and leave space for future additions. Don’t forget the nuts, kiwis, brambleberries and blueberries.
7. Plastic netting does last only some years, but some people say that trees don’t like metal netting overhead (I can tell you that in a year or two, since our enclosure is new).
8. The easiest way is to build the whole enclosure like a fence: posts, stays, wires and clipped-on netting. In case you didn’t see out new enclosure it’s here:
9. The easiest way is to build the whole enclosure like a fence: posts, stays, wires and clipped-on netting. In case you didn’t see our new enclosure it’s here:
10. Once you’ve build all these fences you will have a pretty fox proof poultry enclosure. Your trees will grow better with all that extra fertilizer. Only make sure that the bottom wire is dug firmly into the ground.
11. In case you live in a snow prone area, tilt the upper netting a fair bit and don’t use the very fine chicken mesh, otherwise the whole structure will break.

Visit out new enclosure and ask questions on how to build it at: The Blue Mountains Edible Garden Festival and Trail!

Read more about our new enclosure: Orchard + Chicken