Rabbit fence

I probably could have gotten more digging in this weekend, but I started too late on Saturday. I also had to make a couple trips to Home Depot, first to get a wheelbarrow and a spading fork, and then to pick up more fence posts. But I got the rabbit fence done!

Day 1 (Saturday) ended here:



Day 2 (Sunday) finished it off.



The whole project, really, if you count only the time putting in the rabbit fence, took about four and a half hours. The initial design plan had only eight fence posts, but I really needed twelve.

It is, I think, approximately 22' x 15'.

The basic design involves 4' steel fence posts and 3' plastic chicken netting. The post holes are 2' deep, and the trench between is 1' deep, so your netting ends up buried about a foot to keep the critters from just digging under. It took a little while for me to get a good visual idea of what about a 1' deep trench looks like; most of the first side is too shallow, so the bottom of the netting is curled.

I did the whole thing with just a spade and a rake; the bottom of the post holes are lined with gravel. Next step:



Yep, that's about 650 lbs. of manure. I've mentioned French intensive gardening before; double-digging is up next for me. I bought the book I keep checking out from the library, so hopefully that will show up this week. I think between those three pictures, you've seen all the garden equipment I own except the hose and the seed trays.

There are, besides the garden, several flower beds around the house. I've got a bunch of random seeds I've bought the past few years, but what I found that I really want to try growing is blue lupine. It's a perennial, so hopefully I wouldn't have to keep planting it, and it's the food for an endangered butterfly. I don't know if my planting them in our flower beds will help the butterfly, but they're pretty, too. And hey, if I get to see an endangered butterfly, that's also cool.

I've got 3/5 of the back yard still behind the garage to decide what to do with. The previous owners had a good chunk of that in garden, too, but doing the French intensive method, I don't think my back will forgive me more than the side already in the rabbit fence. Maybe I'll just put it in grass, and we can actually put the lawnmower my mom wants to get us to use.