Some of you may be wondering how our garden is doing. This is a long post, so grab a cup of tea and follow us as we finally get the raised-bed garden (mostly) installed.
Due to late-season construction efforts, I didn't get everything planted I wanted to plant. However – and this is the critical part – the fencing is done.
Before we get to that, however, let's back up to the point where Don and I finished laying the drip system for the final row of beds. This dates back to early May, when we uncoiled the three-quarter inch irrigation hose...
... and prepared to cut it to 11-foot lengths.
This was not an easy task, since the hose wanted to recoil on itself. So Don came up with a clever solution: He got a hollow metal pipe...
...and set a screw 11 feet in.
Then it was a simple matter of feeding the irrigation hose into the pipe until it bumped into the screw...
... and cutting the pipe to size using a cutter specialized to cut irrigation hose.
We cut nine such pipe lengths.
Then we cut nine two-foot risers.
Next step: Remove the 50-inch-high cattle panels from around the garden. Clearly these were useless for keeping out deer (which is why we had no garden to speak of last year), but were highly effective for keeping the cows out.
With the sides of the garden opened up, we pulled back the unanchored weed cloth and ran a line...
...and marked it with spray paint.
All it had to do was act as a guide.
Then Don hooked up the spade plow to the tractor to dig a trench for laying the irrigation pipe, following the spray-paint markers.
He ran over the trench twice.
Then we used shovels to clear the bottom of the trench.
Ready to lay the pipe.
Each 11-foot section was joined using a T-connector, with a riser sticking out at top. Each riser will come out right in front of a raised bed.
Because things still wanted to twist a bit, we staked each connector with U-stakes to make sure the risers stayed in the correct upright position.
Nine risers, nine raised beds (per row). Then we buried the pipe.
The above tasks were stretched out over several days. Then we got diverted with building the calf pen and milking stall after Maggie had her calf Stormy two weeks earlier than anticipated.
When we resumed work on the garden, it was early June. We repeated the same process we followed when laying out the other three rows of raised beds: Stretching out weed cloth, cutting holes in the fabric for the hose bibs to poke through, then bringing in gravel and raking it out.
Notice how we extended the weed cloth and gravel two feet beyond the fenceline boundary (delineated by the T-posts). This is due to a lesson learned from the garden at our old place: Don't give the cows any excuse to push against the fence in an effort to get to some tasty morsels juuuust on the inside of the fence.
Crucially, however, Don didn't have time to make more raised beds. We were racing the calendar. We needed to let the cows into the larger pasture adjacent to the garden, which clearly we couldn't do until at least the cattle-panel fence was reinstalled. We had two beds already made, which we put in place and filled with soil; but there's room for seven more beds in the last row. Those will have to wait until fall or early spring of next year.
Then it was time to install the pièce de résistance for our garden: Deer netting. We had plans to string this netting as high as we possibly could. Harsh experience has taught us that eight-foot fences are not an effective deterrent against a determined deer. Instead, we had plans to go higher. (Some readers have suggested double fences, but since our sloped garden space is stolen from the limited pasturage we have available for the cows, we opted to go for height rather than increase the garden footprint.)
To this end, we needed to fasten extensions to the existing T-posts. We used iron well rods for this purpose. These well rods come in 21-foot lengths, so we cut them in half to make 10.5-foot risers. To keep rain water from getting inside the pipes, we capped each one with PVC end caps with a small eye-bolt epoxied to the top.
Before strapping the pipes to the T-posts, we strung braided steel cable through the eye-bolts.
Then we placed each pipe against a T-post and used hose clamps to fasten them securely in place.
At first the steel cable drooped between poles.
But once the poles were secure, we pulled the cable taut...
...and strapped it in place using double hose clamps.
This gave us a fencing height of a dazzling ten and a half feet.
Then it was time to string the seven-and-a-half foot deer netting from the high wire. To make it easier to work, we cut the netting to lengths of about 30 feet at a time (enough to string between about three posts), borrowed a high stepladder from a neighbor, and started hanging. This was precarious business. The ground is both sloped and uneven, so climbing the ladder was a two-person job. I was the climber, and Don (who is stronger) was the ladder bracer.
Slowly we worked our way around the garden. At the top of each pole, I wired the deer netting in place...
...then clipped the netting to the high wire using hog rings every two or three feet.
We were working only in the early-morning hours during this stage, since it was too hot during the day. By this point, too, we had re-installed the cattle-panel fence and clipped the bottom of the netting to the tops of the cattle panels using hog rings. Then we let the cows into the pasture.
Here's the height of the fence compared to some of our cows (you can see a blackbird perched at the very top).
Ain't no deer can jump this!
With the garden effectively fenced against deer, I had the opportunity to do something I've been unable to do until this point: WEED.
Anything mulched with new straw (which included all the potatoes) was severely overgrown with wheat. (Since the straw is wheat straw, this isn't unexpected. If anyone wants to plant wheat, simply lay down some straw and water it. An amazing crop of wheat will result.) It seems counterintuitive, but I learned the hard way that the wheat grass tended to fake out the deer, and they were less likely to nibble down the potato plants if the bed was overgrown.
These are some of the overgrown potato beds. Yes, there are potatoes in there.
What a pleasure to be able to weed at last! It took a few days, but finally everything was cleaned up. I like weeding, so this was no hardship.
I was even finally able to transplant the tiny tomato and broccoli seedlings I've been nursing along. Some insects promptly ate them down, so I doubt we'll get any of either vegetable this year.
But that's okay. The deer netting is in place. Next year, the garden will be much more likely to succeed.
The final tally for beds in this garden space is 35 3x8-foot beds, seven of which still aren't built or installed. We've planned the location so the space can be doubled to 70+ beds should it become necessary. While the drip irrigation system isn't hooked up yet (and won't be this year), we have the infrastructure in place to get it operational next year.
At the moment, we have four beds of strawberries, one bed of spaghetti squash, two beds of onions, one bed of bunching onions, eight beds of potatoes, and five beds of garlic. I also have two beds of broccoli and three beds of tomatoes, but as mentioned, they're unlikely to succeed. We also have two empty beds with nothing planted.
So that's our garden update. Progress progress.
