Fencing - Consistent in Our Effort, but Flexible in Our Plans
When planning out a garden, there are so many things to consider.
- What zone are you in?
- What seeds will you buy?
- How will you water your garden?
- When should you plant?
- How will you protect your growing plants?
Depending on where you are there are a variety of wild animals and critters to watch out for.
Deer, moose, bear, gophers, squirrels, rabbits and more.
Yes, some of those are cute now, until they decimate your garden!
Or worse, injure your dog! I once came home to find our dog had killed the biggest, ugliest squirrel I have ever seen. Its front teeth were nearly an inch long. I wish I'd taken a photo, but I was busy trying to stop the bleeding on Buster's muzzle and keep the kids away from it.
_Amazingly, the squirrel laid there without any visible trauma. But it definitely did not go down without a fight!
Anyway, my point, is we have to protect our garden from outside invaders. But what about your own animals?
Since I’ve mentioned our old California homestead a few times. I thought I would share the little bit of gardening we did there. We did get a few things to grow.
Some kale…
Some tomatoes…
Somethings were already planted from the previous owner.
I’m embarrassed to say that I am not 100% certain what this plant is. It looks like a squash vine of sorts, but the vegetable looks more like a cucumber, which we do not eat. (I have never ever liked cucumber. If you have some crazy recipe that you think might change my mind, please let me know as I’d like to train my taste buds to like more foods, but so far, cucumber and cantaloupe are two that make me queasy.)
We even had some pumpkins and squash sprout up around the pig enclosure. After Halloween, we had neighbors bring us their old Jack-O-Lanterns and our pigs devoured them, leaving seeds here and there. It was perfect because, we just used those plants to feed the pigs!
Between the free-ranging hens and the escaping goats, it was a miracle any plants survived. When we moved into this house we were so excited about these nine existing planters, but they were on large cement steps, so fencing them off was a challenge.
We came up with these small liftable covers made with small strips of wood and chicken wire.
Looking back at these photos, I just remembered why there is a blue bellied-lizard in so many photos. @guntotnhippie was out with the girls and came across this little cutie and proceeded to pose it around the farm.
Even with the goats…
And with a feather hat…
And in our weed-ridden garden…
And just for fun, here’s a photo of our first hatching of Muscovy ducklings. Because who doesn't love ducklings?
I know there is some funny story as to why a shoe is in the duck pen. Alas, I cannot remember. Never a dull moment with 4 kids running about! I will definitely be writing a future post about Muscovy ducks. They were our favorite bird on the farm!
Anyway, I am not a fencing expert, so I can’t tell you what will work for your farm. This is just one idea that worked for us, that is, until the animals figured it out and it stopped working. There were days I had to go release a hen who had invaded one of my garden enclosures, but couldn’t find her way out.
Although we worked to reinforce and secure the goat fencing, there were times where a well-meaning little helper failed to latch the gate properly and one, two or three goats were found on top of the planters, after having pushed the covers to the ground. (Although, this was minor, compared to the day they got our and devoured TEN brand new bare root fruit trees we had recently planted. We nearly had goat stew that day…)
In homesteading, we must be consistent in our effort, but flexible in our plans. If something doesn’t work in the manner we intended, then sometimes we must think outside the box to find a viable solution.
Hey @crowbarmama,
I have yet to figure out the right fencing, my problem is my chickens!! They attack all the precious veggies, scratching out the roots squishing the seedling trying to dust bathe.
That lizard is too funny btw, and the ducklings sooooo cute!
Take care,
@amymya
This fencing topic is front and center here on our homestead too.
My K-9s are good at keeping the nibbling critters away, but at the cost of the garden...lol...fencing these cuties out needs to happen this year.
)
![KIMG1861.JPG(
Creativity here I come!
Cool lizard!!
I have a friend whose dog actually ate up her garden! Seriously, not just digging and playing, like actually ate an entire row of broccoli!! I used to have a dog who loved to catch pieces of broccoli stems and carrot tops, but I never imagined a dog just pigging out in the garden. Lol! Good luck with them this year!
I would be getting real creative with fencing too if I had them creatures jumping all around my garden. Only critter I worry about. Is the cats jumping in to do there business.
Luckily, the only times I caught my cars in there were when a little bird was stuck inside & they were going for an easy lunch! ;-)
You have been chosen to be my Fostered Gardener Of The Week Thanks to @fulltimegeek's delegation as a Steward of Gondor @goldendawne will be here for you to assist, guide and help you GROW- just like your garden- on steemit. Please accept this 100% Upvote for this post. You will receive a 100% Upvote for every post (up to seven per week) you make for the seven days CONGRATULATIONS on being a committed steemian!
Looks like someone has some BIG plans for tonight- wearing the fancy hat!
Get a guardian dog to keep the critters and deer out. Worked wonders until I had to make sure to keep my dog in. The invisible fence only worked for a month. Now deer are getting a bit more brave.
We have two large dogs, a German Shepherd and a South African Boerboel. When we first moved here, our dogs stayed in California with my parents. That first winter we had deer & moose tracks right past the front door. I've only seen tracks outside our yard since we moved the dogs up here. But yes, deer can get pretty brazen!
I like the raised beds you have with the screen boxes. Thats a great planter with some protection. =)
Thank you. Those were at our old homestead. I wish we had them now. Where we now live, we have lots of snow, so those raised beds would be very useful. The screen boxes were what we came up with at the time, but once they were knocked to the ground a few times by the goats, they started falling apart! Oh well. There's always a lesson to learn if we're open to it!