Hmmmm.....a garden without a fence could be problematic. Maybe even disastrous. Especially when the area surrounding the garden is loaded with bunnies (cute, but they munch on veggies), groundhogs (we've already discussed how much
they can eat!) and deer (our neighbor claims we have 10 that bed down in the field behind the garden). And those are just the critters we know about. Ahhhh, life on the farm.
My knowledgeable husband hatched a plan to thwart at least some of the critters and to try and give us a fighting chance at a decent harvest as a payoff for all our hard work in the garden this year. First, grab your strong son and put him to work while you instruct him.
Second, teach him about tamping down around the poles and how much concrete to use to help them set up correctly. And about "plumb", not to be confused with "plum".....you know, how to use a level to make the poles nice and straight. Ok, now let's let them set up for a couple days.
Meanwhile, the tomato plants were starting to droop because they had nothing holding them up. Whew! On to the next project. Let's install some trellis to support the vining and climbing plants. Um, yea. That took a little more effort than we first thought it would, too. But with Jeremy's help we managed to get 6- 32' sections installed in one evening. The next day I crawled around and tied up 35 tomato plants and countless vines.
Ok, the garden is looking pretty good at this point but it's still missing a few key components....like the gates and the fence. So a few nights ago Joel and I went outside and screwed the bracing to the corner posts to help prevent any sagging once the gates and fence are installed. At least that part wasn't so bad.
And then this morning Joel and I installed the two gates. One is 8' long so we can easily get equipment into the garden once the fence is up. The other sits at the opposite end of the garden by the chicken coop and is for walking thru only. Or for the chickens to get into the garden later this fall after harvest time is over......they will do an excellent job eating the bugs and pooping on the garden, getting it ready for next spring. Ah, the cycle of life on the farm. Gotta love it.
It took a little straining to get the bolts into the 4x4's but the gates are now up and functional. Not so sure when we're going to get to the fencing. That's a huge project since there is over 300' of it to install. Yup. We don't do anything small here, no-sirree! Go big or go home. Or something like that.
But I am really liking how the gates look. The grass inside the fence will easily get mowed with my little tractor and will allow us room if we decide to expand the garden. (Ha!) I don't think that's going to be happening anytime soon.
It's kinda crazy how many projects we have been knocking out since the weather warmed up. One of the good things about most of them, though, is that they are one-time projects. Not something that has to be repeated every year. Thank. Goodness. It's just that many of them needed to be completed our first year here on the farm. Sitting around this winter is going to be a piece of cake after the work we've done this summer. Just sayin'...
One tired Farm Chick,
Debbie
P.S.
I still need to blanche all that broccoli and get it frozen.
