Bird netting hoop house

[Just-Moxie]

This is pics of my tomato hoop house. The past 2 years, we have been having problems with resident wild birds, chickens and a peacock eating all of our tomatoes before I could get outside to pick them. This year, DH came up with this idea for making a more bird resistant hoop house with bird netting. So far, so good. We have many marble sized tomatoes on the vines.

 

[Carol Dee]

@moxies_chickienuggets GENIUS We may steal that idea! (Well on a small scale for the berries)

 

[Smart Red]

@moxies_chickienuggets GENIUS We may steal that idea! (Well on a small scale for the berries)

That IS a great idea. Looks like something we could use in south-est, central-est Wisconsin as well.

 

[journey11]

Nicely done! What did you use to connect your netting to the PVC? It looks like the same heavy netting I bought. I got mine at Tractor Supply. A huge roll of it for $25. I've enclosed two beds with it so far, about 4x16' each. I forget how much is on the roll, but I have lots left. I had to go to the extra trouble this evening to enclose my pepper patch. The cat wanted to roll in the soft dirt and squash my baby pepper plants (and they like to potty there too). Fortunately I was still out there working before he had a chance to do any damage!

 

[Just-Moxie]

Oh....bird netting, 3/4" pvc pipe, small 3/8" x 2' rebar to hold the pvc in the ground. Then, he used zip ties to hook it all together!! Took us about 5 hours total one Saturday, as we already had the raised bed in place.

 

[PhilaGardener]

Nifty idea! I put some netting over my tomatoes this morning - just lost my first stupice to the birds just as it was coloring up . I like your approach better!

 

[Just-Moxie]

It took a season or two of trial and error. Have to outsmart the critters

 

[Just-Moxie]

Oh no....we caught 2 adult snakes in the hoop house bird netting. Last night. DH went to check on the tomatoes, and they had crawled through the netting and gotten caught. Now, we don't usually kill non-venomous snakes, but there were two...which probably means there are plenty more around the property. In the 4 years we have been here, we have never seen nor caught 2 snakes at the same time. And considering that they would go after the baby chicks.
We spent about 45 minutes.....we were going to just free them and let them go....but they kept striking at us and heading back into the netting. Oh well.

 

[baymule]

There is a thread on BYC about rolling up netting to trap snakes. Here is a link to a thread about using minnow traps to catch snakes.

http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/515899/best-way-ive-found-yet-to-deal-with-snake-problems

Love the hoop, netting idea to save your tomatoes for yourself!

 

[Just-Moxie]

We don't want to catch them!! lol..... We just want for them to eat the mice and go about their merry way

I have to watch out for the venomous ones though. I have found 2 copperheads in 4 years of living on the one acre. The first one was under the bean leaves, and I almost picked it up