Saturday Afternoon Project- Building the Garden Fence

This past weekend the Laird and his father built a fence to protect the garden from the various wildlife that roam Redwoodshire.  Deer are the known and primary enemy at hand.  We've spotted a few garter snakes, bunnies, a groundhog, a red fox, lots of birds, chipmunks and a Great Horned Owl.  Unfortunately, the Laird and miss Genevieve discovered our beloved Owl dead in the woods last week.

Fencing the Garden- 
Building a fairly simple and somewhat inexpensive garden fence (when re-purposing old materials)

Materials:

1)  8-9ft. Cedar Beams from our house renovation

2)  Metal posts found near garage

3) Gardeneer Deer -X mesh fencing

4) String to attach the mesh

Tools:

1) Post hole digger

2) Staple Gun

3) Sledge Hammer

4) At least 2 people

STEP 1:  Dig 4 post holes 2 ft. deep at each corner of the garden.

STEP 2: Place cedar post into hole, then drive metal post into ground next to cedar post (for  additional support)

STEP 3:  Refill hole with dirt and pack dirt down

STEP 4:  Space additional metal posts 5 ft apart between cedar post corners

STEP 5:  Staple mesh to cedar posts and tie to metal posts- try to keep taught at 6 ft. tall

** We are temporarily using an old lightweight metal fence as a gate, until the real gate is built.

STPE 6:  Use left over cedar posts, metal posts and rocks to hold and weigh the bottom of fence down and prevent animals from crawling under fence.

The is the opening to the garden, where the gate will eventually be

Gardeneer Deer-X can be purchased online.  We ordered ours from Ace Hardware.  It is lightweight, and fairly inexpensive (for fences),  and pretty much invisible from a distance.  We used about 100ft and have about 100ft left over- that we will use to cover the blueberry bushes, raspberry hedge, and possibly the baby apple trees.  Easy to install and perfectly suited for a fence.  We have yet to see how effective it is with keeping the animals out.