A friend of mine wanted to install a garden. He lives out in the county on a chunk of land and was worried about bunnies, gophers, moles, deer, and birds eating for free. Free food is typically a pretty awesome thing when it benefits you, but when the wildlife take advantage not so much. After some talk and discussion of where the garden would go and what the best type of protection would be we put the plan into motion. The first thing that we did was to clear out the brushy, twiggy, grassy stuff and rake it down and out into a stack. We did a small burn of our pile in hopes that the ashes would benefit the future garden. The next day we took a trip to Belgrade, Montana to Pacific Steel to buy one inch square tubing at twenty-foot sticks.
The following day the mini excavator arrived. I love operating excavators. We took out the top six inches of sod in the 20’x40′ garden location. Around the perimeter I dug a two foot trench that we would eventually bury two of the ten feet of steel cage with a four-foot tall roll of half-inch wire mesh. We also move some rock around the property for a future rock garden that will be planting with sedums and succulents. The gravel arrived the same day and was dumped on the west side of the dig area. The twelve yards of half-inch washed crushed rock arrived and was dumped west of the garden for ease of movement. Our hopes are that we will be able to borrow the neighbor’s Bobcat skid steer.
I arrived early the next day to get a start on the construction of the cage itself. I must admit I’m not a welder, never done it. My friend however, whose home this is, is quite good. We built the west wall using ten foot sticks so that eight feet would be above ground with a four foot doorway. Getting the pieces in place was no easy task; as we tried to connect a portion of the south frame the whole thing fell over and busted up part of the west wall. We had to start over and re-weld a few pieces that got munched up. With a doubled effort and a drink of water we were back at it with a new plan. Using twenty-foot sticks propped up in the corner sections for stability we were able to put up the west wall frame with portions of the north and south wall. Not an easy task. The other half went much quicker and was in and installed relatively quickly.
We took a day off due to snow, but the following day we leveled the bottom of the trench out with concrete pads and attached the four foot section of half inch wire mesh while squaring it off. We started to dump the gravel on the outside of the cage and dirt in the inside starting with the four corners and then each of the posts. No such luck with the Bobcat skid steer. It was going to be all hand work and lots of it. I brought my little Ava (9) out a couple days to help and she did totally awesome matching shovel for shovel as we loaded the wheel barrow on more than just a few occasions; what a great girl.
The next few days were all hand work leveling out the interior, placing dirt up against the 1/2 inch wire mesh on the inside and the washed crushed rock on the outside. My arms and back were sore that day, not to mention I was fighting a stupid cold that made me hack and sneeze while my nose wanted to run a marathon. The last day we cut out part of the hillside to make a southern pathway, giving ease to get around to maintain the enclosure.
As you can see this is still in progress. I will take more pictures as we continue to finish this project up and jot down another post. Click here for Critter Proof Gardening #2.