Welcome to the party- I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! We had a nice few days with decent weather. Wanna know what we did? Camp? Picnic? BBQ with family and friends? Hang out?
Nah. We started work on the deer fence. Between the voles and the deer, all our house/yard budget money is going towards things that will keep them out of our food. Joy.
This is what we had when we bought the place (please ignore the weeds, although the flowering plant to the left is a purple sprouting broccoli I let go to seed when I saw tons of honeybees on the blooms). It consisted of a four foot wire fence used to keep the previous owner's llamas in these two little pastures.
You can just see on the third post in from the right the taller PVC pipe that Brian installed a couple years ago. He ran a string from them at the 6 foot height and I tied strips of white sheeting to the string. And see that road there? Yeah, that's where everyone drives by and looks at the garden.
A lovely sight, I gotta tell you.
Plus, the deer just jumped right over it. I know you are probably not surprised, but Brian wouldn't believe it until I showed him the frayed string where their hooves hit it jumping over. And of course the carrot tops and pepper leaves eaten.
This is the outline of our new fence on Saturday morning. Our friend Dan brought over his tractor with a mighty auger to dig the post holes and helped Brian set and level the posts.
We are reusing a lot of the wood from the fence we took down when we built our garage, so we didn't have to purchase all new wood...just enough to give you pause.
There will be two grape arbors, one going into the berry patch and one into the veggie garden. Hopefully at 8 feet tall, the deer will not be able to denude the vines before we harvest some grapes.
Meanwhile, the kids and I weeded and planted and cut down the seven shrubs that didn't make it through our cold snap in December (one week of 11 degree weather...).
Next week I'll show you the progress on the fence, which will hopefully be almost complete by then.
Or is that wishful thinking?
I think I might have some deer problems too, so putting up a fence is in my future. Glad to be a part of this weeks party.
ReplyDeleteI used to have a bunny that would eat my hostas. Love wildlife...just not in the garden :)
ReplyDeleteWe had deer in our garden all the time when I lived in Montana. I think your 8 footer should help stem their attack though.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to hear more about your grapes as I have thought I'd like to grow some myself but don'e know a thing about it. Care to share any wisdom?
thanks.
thanks for the chance to share photos of my garden. i'm following your blog now, lots of great inspiration here...
ReplyDeleteWe have a lot of deer in our area, but don't get them in our yard, thank goodness. Coyotes, yes, but they don't care much about the plants. Have to keep the cats inside though. ;-)
ReplyDeleteSweet! Looks like a lotta hard work but it'll be sooo worth the effort!
ReplyDeleteI don't *sigh* have a link but I happened to click a link to you and HELLO!! I'm a fellow Oregonian. Woo Hoo!! I'm signing on to follow and need to get back to my party but I'll be back to browse. :)
ReplyDeleteWell, I missed this weeks party, but I will be back next week! Since it seems like most of my posts lately have been outdoor/garden I decided to do a one-time themed "Garden Link Party" with some sponosored giveaways June 23-25, I'd love to have you join us!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to check out some of these gardens!
Sharon
Ha- there you are Sharon! I just left a response to your comment on the no-till post, and wished you had left your blog name, and ta-da, here you are. :-)
ReplyDeleteI'll check it out and look forward to seeing your link at the Garden Party. And I'd love to be a part of your link party- I've always got some garden thing goin' on.
M- We grew grapes at our other place and learned the importance of a strong support (the stems grow to trunks!) and winter pruning. Other than that, it was pretty easy- just had to keep the birds away!
ReplyDeleteAna- thanks for following! Glad you found me!
Zentmrs- coyotes- eek!
Always nesting- Hello back, fellow Oregonian! Nice to have you around- I will take a look at your blog. :-)