This project took us quite a while to complete, but it was most defiantly worth it.
If you’ve ever had a garden, you’ve probably also had various crops decimated by animals. Personally, we used to have an old garden with six large raised beds with no fencing of any sort, and just about everything got eaten by various animals. So about two years ago we decided to build a new garden that would keep out deer, elk and rabbits.
First off, to keep out elk, deer and rabbits we added a fence. In order for the fence to keep out the elk and deer, you need to make sure it’s at least 6 feet tall. On the bottom section of the fence we used wire mesh with 1/2 inch holes, so no rabbits could get through.
We used pressure treated 4x4s put in the ground about two feet deep with about 2-3 bags of concrete in each. For the top panels, we used 4×4 inch hog wire and framed it in with 2x2s. The bottom panels are 1/2 inch wire mesh also framed with 2x2s. We used all pressure treated wood since it wasn’t touching the plants or garden soil.
In order to keep animals from digging into the garden, the fence went down about four inches and then went out about six inches. Animals aren’t smart enough to know to move back when they hit a barrier. Since they tend to start digging within a couple inches of the fence, making the fence go outward works to keep out any digging animals.
The one digging animals that can still get into the garden are moles. In order to prevent moles from hurting the garden, just add some extra wire mesh at the bottom of the raised beds and hold it down with some rocks before pilling soil on top and the moles won’t be able to get through.
Now a big problem we have is slugs. There are many things that people use to get rid of slugs, but nothing will completely eliminate them from your garden. you really just have to go through your garden everyday and toss them out. We do this every night, but we also have copper strips around the fence to repel slugs. When we go on vacation, we always spread slug bait around the garden before we leave. We use an animal friendly slug bait, and it’s very animal friendly, to the point we have had bears, birds and our dog all try to eat it from our deck, so be sure to be aware of this.
We also attempted to keep out birds by using flash tape and a fake owl. Neither of these worked at all. Since the birds really only pulled out seedlings, we just planted extra seedlings and it was fine.
The last thing we had to do to complete our garden was add soil. We ordered raised bed soil and had it delivered to our house. The soil ended up really sandy and heavy, and nothing grew well, especially root veggies. This was frustrating and we are going to have to spend some time amending the soil as well as practicing crop rotation and anything we can do to improve the soil.
How did you build your garden? What are some methods you used to protect it? I would love to hear in the comments below!
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Highschool Homesteader 