Re-routing the Garden Fence

One of my strongest pieces of advice to anyone looking to get into gardening is to start without a plan. Seriously, just put some seeds in the ground, and see what happens.

This should be a relatively small piece of ground. Or a pot.

In one growing season you will have opportunity to learn a whole lot of stuff for (relatively [in gardening terms]) little money. And after you reap your first harvest you will either say, “Whoa that was a ton of work. Not really all that much fun. I think next year I will try synchronized swimming instead.”

or

“Whoa! That was awesome! I grew that! I bet I can grow more next year. I just need to tear up some of that unproductive lawn and install some better irrigation, and probably a more functional trellis, and maybe get some compost to amend the soil, and while I’m at it starting my seeds indoors will probably get me a huge head start on the season…”

If that describes you, one of my strongest pieces of advice to anyone looking to go from a small garden to a medium sized or large garden is to plan for access.

I failed to do this when we built the fence around our current garden plot. I thought I did it. I factored in 36 inch pathways between 36 inch rows, to leave plenty of room for the wheelbarrow. However…

we made it a square fence (represented by blue lines on the picture above), with a gate at two corners, but we underestimated a couple of thing. First, we underestimated how much that dog would run around the garden to terrorize the livestock and trample on our new plants (represented by red on the picture above) That prompted our first re-routing of the garden fence.

This re-routing essentially left the original south side layout intact, other than sticking a flag pole right in the middle of the main wheelbarrow route, and leaving a weird, useless tongue of lawn sticking into the garden and a narrow, hairpin turn to come from the lawn into the garden. We underestimated how much bother it would be to run a loaded wheelbarrow down a 3-foot wide pathway, and then turn it 90 degrees down another 3-foot wide pathway. It’s a chore. And given the countless (probably thousands) of wheelbarrow trips we have made into the garden, it adds up to a lot of lost time and scraped knuckles.

We also did not realize how poorly the chicken wire/deer netting combo was going to hold up, reiterating a message we have ignored many times in the last three years:

Do it right the first time.

Which all sounds very well when you say it like that, but in real life we very often don’t know what right is, or can’t afford it, or don’t have the time for it. So we wing it and then adjust later.

That’s one of our odd moment jobs right now, re-routing the south end of the garden fence.

It is going to be a straight line. Like it probably should have been at the start. Also shown on the map above are the future locations of the herb garden/Holy Family statue (green circle) and greenhouse/tool shed (Green rectangle). But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

First step is always taking apart the old stuff. Fortunately, I had help.

Then digging a hole for a new gate post.

Got to check and make sure it is deep enough.

There we go. Four feet deep.

All that digging makes Winnie a tired Winnie. Fortunately, Daddy doesn’t need his right hand for anything at supper, so she can just pull it over and position it as her own private head rest.

When the world is complicated, dig a hole. Life is simpler when you are digging a hole.

Seppi heard me pounding rocks around the bottom of the post and came running outside as fast as he could, outraged that I had dared to dig a hole without him.

Fortunately, he got to help un-dig the hole, which is almost as much fun and a lot faster.

Stomp it down hard.

When you pull dirt out of a hole and put a fence post in, you should be able to put all that dirt back in the same hole despite the presence of the post.

We’ve now got about 17 1/2 feet of space to work with inside the garden area.

Pulling out the old fence was a challenge. A large clump of yarrow had grown roots right through it, and by the time we got that dug/ripped out, the chicken wire was non-salvageable.

This post was the most bothersome. It was driven too deep and could not be pulled. It had to be dug out with a shovel.

Then we pounded a t-post of our own.

I so strong!

Last Tuesday we took half and hour and installed the gate latch. (Another key bit of advice. Always go for a latch you can operate one handed. Chains are a pains.)

Seppi is a man with tools.

Then we found that the leftover chicken wire was not a roll, but a bundle of short scraps, and wouldn’t work for this. So we patched the gap with mobile netting and will leave it like this until we get some proper fencing.