Country Enterprise - stop birds eating your raspberries with cages, horticultural netting or net curtains.

<P> It is possible to be picking raspberries through into the autumn if you plant some autumn-fruiting varieties. </P><P>In any case, whenever the fruits are ready the birds will be waiting. Birds seem to have a never-failing appetite for raspberries. Sometimes they strip the whole berry and at other times they simply steal one side, leaving odd-shaped half berries all over the canes. </P><P>You can either put up a cage that you can walk into to pick or you can drape the canes with net that you lift up when you are gathering. The most decorative and romantic rows of raspberries are those covered with old net curtains. The cream net floats on soft breezes, the deep reds and greens gleaming through. Funnily enough this kind of net is much easier to deal with than the specialist nets made for the job. The very fine net does not allow pieces of leaf and cane to poke through and catch the net. However, if you stick to the net curtains you may well be limiting the size of your rows — horticultural net is much cheaper to buy. You can either put up a cage that you can walk into to pick or you can drape the canes with net that you lift up when you are gathering. </P> </P><P ALIGN=RIGHT> <A HREF=fruit3.htm TARGET=mainframe STYLE="text-decoration: none">picking raspberries</A></P>