Fruit cages: any use?

[FelixLeiter]

I have enjoyed fruit from my garden for around 20 years now — raspberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries. These are the great joys of high summer, the first summer pudding on the table, the first jar of raspberry jam. None of my fruit is caged. In all this time of growing fruit, I have not once noticed birds taking any of the fruit. And there are a lot of birds here, which I encourage. A blackbird nested in a redcurrant bush last year! So, have I got lucky all this time, or do we really need to cage our fruit? In my view, a fruit cage is nothing but a nuisance. (Observant readers may have noticed that I do not grow strawberries, which I suppose if I did may put a different complexion on my opinion.)

[oldherbaceous]

I have a fair amount of fruit bushes and these are not netted or in a cage, these only suffer a small loss.

I also have about 100 strawberry plants, last year i did net in the end as the blackbirds were taking large quantities.
This year there seem to be fewer blackbirds about so no netting required.

[Colin Miles]

I have a fruit cage in which I have now put my blackcurrant, blueberries, gooseberry and apples. The strawberries were there originally but now have a different bed - and I had to net them against the blackberries. Outside the fruit cage the Jays attacked the apples.

This year I am regularly freeing birds - from the fruit cage garden warbler (twice), young great tit (twice), young robin, young blackbird, couple of blue tits . Blackbirds were after the red gooseberries. Not quite sure what the others were after as the blackcurrants had finished and the blueberries are not ripe. And despite keeping on going round making it 'bird-proof' they still get in! Didn't have this problem in previous years.

Guess it depends on what your particular birds/animals fancy. Frogs like strawberries and I have seen a Wood-Pigeon taking Broad beans out of a pod. They never read the books!

[madasafish]

I have about 80 raspberries. None are caged. Birds take a few: I don't mind.
Blueberries : I net. Or I would have none.

Red and blackcurrants: I plant quite close together and fertilise heavily with manure and lots of compost. They grow into deep leafy swathes where the fruit hides and the birds do not see it.

Strawberries: I net. Waste of time. Squirrels and foxes have decimated them. I will make wire caging for next year..(after 26 years of netting becoming less useful: the foxes this year were the last straw in the dry spell. They were desperate and ate everything - and dug up the lawn for worms)

[Geoff]

I have a substantial fruit cage that I have posted a few photos of in the past - I wouldn't be without it. Before that last rebuild Blackbirds would find their way in when there were either Redcurrants or Blueberries ready, they seem to be their favourites. I didn't have Strawberries then. Before we built it we lost a proportion of the Raspberries too. This year I lost Strawberries to Voles until I trapped them.

[glallotments]

We grow all sorts of soft and hard fruit and only net strawberries, redcurrants, and the cherry as the fruit is ripening

The blackbirds are the main culprits and before we netted would strip the redcurrants. Even when netted the blackbirds often find their way in but this way they don't steal as much of the fruit. Once we have had what we want we remove the netting and let the birds have the rest. I've even seen a magpie flying off with one of our large strawberries after managing to winkle it thorugh the netting.

No special fruit cages just a wooden lath and post construction built up when required. Just have to be careful not to have loose net along the ground where birds can get trapped.

[retropants]

We have a simple homemade cage, built from scraps. We have to net all our fruit, as we lose the lot otherwise. We have a parakeet infestation and they attack the apple trees in a swarm. One day we had a tree full of cherries, the nest day it was bare. We net the strawberries too, we found out it was the rabbit eating those this year!

[Primrose]

I grow my currant & gooseberry bushes in borders up against front garden fences and my strawberries are also in a front garden border. I don't bother netting them.

As we have several bird feeders and a bird table in the back garden, all the birds seem to head there rather where food is readily available, rather than stopping off in the front garden, so I have very little trouble from the birds. Having said that, yesterday I did spot a wood pigeon who is building a nest in a tree in next door neighbour's front garden fly down and start poking around in a redcurrant bush, trying to harvest the few remaining sprigs I'd left on, but that is one of the few times I've really noticed much bird foraging amongst my fruit. I suspect they go for the easy pickings, and bird tables and feeder trays are less work for them.

[John]

We have terrible problems with birds here. Pigeons eat the brassicas, finches have a go at the blossom, blackbirds and thrushes eat any red fruit, the plums and are partial to blueberries, sparrows will destroy peas and enjoy dust baths in rows of seedlings. If the chickens weren't fenced in they would destroy everything!
I have a large fruit cage for the currants, gooseberries and late raspberries and a smaller one just for the summer raspberries. Nearly everything else, except runners, rhubarb and squashes, is hooped and netted in some way or other either against birds or butterflies. If the fruit wasn't in cages we would have nothing except a garden full of very fat, well fed birds.
I did try years ago with homemade cages but found the netting constantly snagged and broke on the woodwork. I now have TWs basic alloy fruit cages which do a good job. They work well if you use wire netting, about 2' high, at the bottom and just drape a large net over the whole lot.
This year there was space in the large cage for two rows of peas. We have had a fantastic crop.

Fruit cages: any use? I'd say absolutely essential.

John