While H broke apart the many mounds of dirt we have, to fill in the many gaping holes that we also have, I worked on an enclosure for our vegetable garden.We have a large number of very hungry rabbits in our area, so the enclosure is more for function than to look pretty. We took down a fence that had been dividing the backyard, so I decided to use the remaining pieces of that as the outer part of the enclosure, and wire mesh that we had picked up at the garden store for the inner part. Here we go!
(Materials: staple gun, wire mesh, wire cutters, and old fencing and posts)
I laid each piece of fencing board side up, to have maximum stapling surface. I unrolled the mesh on top, and stapled as close as possible to the bottom and stretched it as far as I could up to the top. It actually reached nicely to the upper cross board (I obviously don't know the proper fencing terms!) so it didn't even look half bad. I also left a little extra mesh at each end- it can be twisted together with the next piece if need be, or tucked in if it's not.
We decided to put the garden in the front corner of our backyard, so we actually only needed to build two sides to the enclosure. After measuring it out, we started with a small piece right against the fence. H nailed it in, and next came the hinged post for the gate.
We dug the hole for that piece nice and deep, filled it in to keep it in place, and connected the gate to the hinges. This one was a little tricky to get the hinges at exactly the right height for the gate to be able to swing open, but not allow too much space underneath for the rabbits to sneak in.
After that, it was smooth sailing- another deep hole for the post with the latch, a long piece of fencing nailed to that, a shallower hole for the corner post, and the last piece of fencing nailed to that. The last piece of the enclosure wasn't reaching completely to the existing fence, so I nailed it to a 4-foot wood stake instead.
I'm quite proud of the little project! Now let's hope it keeps those rabbits out ...
Cute your project looks like it's going to work perfectly! Whenever we have problems with rabbits eating our veggies, we sprinkle red pepper on the leaves, and the then they won't mess with them. That could be a secondary defense for you!! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip! I'll keep that mind in case they can still get in... or maybe do it before, just to be safe!
ReplyDeleteLooks awesome! We also planted this weekend, a flower garden though. Hopefully no critters will eat those! We only planted one cucumber plant and the squirrels already ate that! Jerks! Your backyard is coming along nicely! :)
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