How do I net fruit without trapping birds?

Netting is the only reliable protection for soft fruit and small trees, and badly done it is one of the most damaging things in a garden. Birds get their heads through wide mesh and cannot back out; slack netting bags around wings and legs; and netting left up out of season catches hedgehogs, grass snakes and bats. All of that is avoidable with three decisions made properly at the start.

Safety

What you'll need

• Netting, 20mm mesh or smaller
• Canes, hoops, poles or a purpose-made frame
• Ground pegs, staples or bricks
• Cane tops or upturned pots to stop poles tearing the net
• Scissors and spare ties (optional)

Step by step

1. Choose the mesh first.20mm or smaller. Wide mesh of 40mm and up is the main cause of trapped birds, because a bird can get its head through and not withdraw it. Fine insect mesh works too, and also excludes some pests, though it cuts light and airflow.
2. Build a frame that holds the net clear of the fruit.Canes with cane tops, alkathene pipe hoops, or a timber frame. Birds peck straight through netting resting on fruit, so clearance is what makes it work at all.
3. Tension it drum-tight.A tight net is both more effective and far safer. Slack netting is what tangles a bird's wing. Pull it and re-tension it whenever you check.
4. Close it to the ground all the way round.Peg, staple, weight with bricks or bury the edge. A gap at the bottom lets birds in and then traps them inside, which is worse than no net at all.
5. Check every day the net is up.A trapped bird dies within hours. Daily inspection is a welfare requirement. Look for snags, sags and any point where the net has come loose.
6. Know what to do if something is caught.Support the bird gently, cut the netting away with scissors rather than trying to pull the bird free, and take the whole assembly off if you need to. If the bird is injured, contact a wildlife rescue rather than releasing it.
7. Take the net down as soon as picking finishes.Netting left up all year is what catches hedgehogs, bats and grass snakes, and it degrades in sunlight into plastic fragments across the garden.
8. Store it properly.Rolled or in a bag in a shed, not in a heap in a corner where wildlife can get into it. Check for holes before it goes back up.
9. Consider a permanent fruit cage if you net every year.A walk-in cage with a door, netted with an appropriate mesh, is easier to check, far safer for wildlife, more effective and less annual work. It is the right answer for anyone with a soft fruit bed.
10. Put the net on before the fruit colours.Birds notice ripening fruit before you do. Netting a bush after the first berries turn is netting an alerted population out of a food source they have already found.

Tips

• Bird-safe netting is sold specifically as such and is usually a fine woven mesh rather than a coarse plastic square grid. It costs more and lasts longer.
• Old cricket netting, agricultural netting and any large-mesh material are the worst offenders. If you can push two fingers through a hole, it is too big.
• Cane tops, upturned plant pots or tennis balls on cane ends stop the canes tearing through the net, which is where sags and holes start.
• Do not use netting as a general garden barrier for slugs or rabbits and forget about it — that is how hedgehogs are found tangled in spring.
• A fruit cage door that you can actually get a wheelbarrow through will make you use the cage properly rather than resenting it.

Common mistakes

• Draping netting loosely over a bush or tree — It bags around birds' wings and legs, and birds peck through it where it touches the fruit anyway. Frame, tension, clearance.
• Using large-mesh netting — Birds put their heads through and cannot withdraw them. Nothing about the rest of the setup compensates for the wrong mesh.
• Leaving netting up out of season — It catches hedgehogs, bats and reptiles and shreds into plastic in the soil. Down the day picking finishes.
• Not checking daily — A trapped bird dies quickly. Netting is a commitment to inspect, not a thing you put up and forget.

Keeping on top of it

• Inspect the whole net for snags, sags and trapped wildlife (Daily while it is up)
• Re-tension and re-peg the edges (Weekly)
• Take down, check for holes and store rolled (At the end of each fruiting season)

Questions people ask