DIY Garden Fence

The chicken wire fence was nice while it lasted, but my dogs ran into it on occasion and so did I. It needed to come down. Time to build a fence (for the first time). It was easier than I thought.

Home Depot trip:

8x 2x4x10 lumber

96x 1x1x3 lumber

1 box of 4" screws

1 box of 3" screws

1 measuring tape (my old was needs some help)

Hardest part of the project (but definitely not the longest) was to get all the wood in my little car.

 I made one section at a time by cutting the 10 footers to length and putting on the rungs every 5.5 inches apart. The top lines up with the top of the 10' piece and the bottom 10' piece is at the 2' mark. Use the 3" screws. Next time, I want some knee pads and better music because this putting on rungs an measuring it out was really time consuming.

Then I ripped out the staples and chicken wire an attached the fence with a bunch of 4" screws. I did one section at a time to make sure the dogs stayed out of my garden.

Several hours later I had them all in, so I did the gate too.

Viva la... garden fence.

Lessons learned:

Hand saws are my enemy, borrow something more electric.

Count better next time, I have 14ish extra rungs.

Use bug spray when working at night.

(Here's how I did the lattice and garden)

DIY Garden (take 2)

I leaned some things from last year's garden: weeks can climb 2 inches into a garden, summer is hot and can kill tomatoes, soil dries quickly when exposed to the sun. This year I attempted to remedy some of those problems.

Home Depot trip:

1 roll garden/week cloth

2 baggies of big staple things

3 bags of wood mulch

2 bottles of total kill

4 tomato plants

6 lettuce plants

Too many kale plants

1 bag of onion bulbs

5 onion bulbs

First, I sprayed total kill around the perimeter of my garden and all over the garden area to kill off any new growth and stop weeds/grass from congregating on my garden. Note: this total kill stuff says that you can plant a day later, I waited a week just in case.

Next, I put down the garden cloth, cut holes, planted plants, and spread mulch.

On the bigger section, I dug a trench on each side. One trench for onion bulbs, and the other for garlic cloves (break them up and spread them out).

In a month or so, I added other plants (herbs, flowers, peppers, squash, zucchini, etc).

This is a vast improvement from my last garden, especially with the lattice.

DIY Garden Lattice

This year, I wanted my plants to climb something more stable and good looking than bamboo with twine tied to it. My solution? PVC and plastic fencing.

Home depot trip:

6x 2' rebar stakes

5x 10' 3/4" white PVC pipe

6x  3/4" white PVC elbow joint

25'x3' green plastic fencing

1 bunch of black zip-ties

First cut the PVC into three 5' sections and six 4' sections. Use the elbow joints to put one 4' section on each end of the 5' sections.

Zip tie the fencing to the PVC frame.

Pound the 2' rebar 1' into the ground where you want the lattice to go. 
Put the lattice on the rebar stakes.

These are easily replaceable, repairable, and they look great.