Garden fence build

[drumminj]

Some progress - finally got all the beds into the garden and got our cattle panel trellises up.

Looks like the 'natural' arc of a 16' cattle panel requires the ends to be 6' apart. We're at 5' so they bow over the beds a bit, but it'll work. Used 2' rebar (12" into the ground) to hold them in place against the beds.

Now we just need to move a bunch of dirt...

 

[EddieWalker]

Are you buying dirt? My soil is red clay mixed with iron ore in areas. It's great for pine trees, but not so much for gardening. So far I've had 3 dump trucks and one dump trailer deliver full loads of garden dirt. Then the wife adds stuff to the dirt like pete moss, top soil and whatever else she decides that it has to have. That's kind of never ending. Probably the most labor intensive part of the garden is getting the dirt into the raised beds.

 

[drumminj]

Luckily we don't have to buy all the dirt.

We do have some leftover from a local nursery we're mixing in, but for the most part we're using the broken down mulch from when our land was forestry mulched. It's been in a huge pile the past three years slowly doing it's thing, and much of it is in good shape to use in the garden (after some filtering of rocks and larger chunks of wood that need more time).

Agree with you that moving the dirt is the most labor intensive part. We did just the four square beds yesterday, about 2/3 full. Need to figure out how to get the tractor involved to be more effective...

 

[workinonit]

You have to make provisions for the tractor when you build the fence.

 

[drumminj]

You have to make provisions for the tractor when you build the fence.

Yeah, I'm not that smart . (actually, I just don't want a gate that big on the garden).

I did go out with the tractor today and loosen up all the soil with the grapple. Everything's nice and fluffly now and easy to shovel, so shoveling is faster.

 

[ning]

Yeah, I'm not that smart . (actually, I just don't want a gate that big on the garden).

I did go out with the tractor today and loosen up all the soil with the grapple. Everything's nice and fluffly now and easy to shovel, so shoveling is faster.

It's actually all a plan to get a mini track loader or SCUT!

 

[workinonit]

Well mine is slightly larger than yours. I think I put up 6 rolls of 8' wire wrap fence, 330 ft per roll. There was maybe 50 feet of scrap left.

 

[bigtiller]

Can you rent an electric wheel barrow? This one is 29" wide.

 

[drumminj]

Can you rent an electric wheel barrow? This one is 29" wide.

I didn't know such a thing existed. That's really cool!

We're just using a gorilla cart which works fine. It's not the moving of the cart that's so much work, it's the shoveling from the dirt pile into the cart (screening as we go to get rid of rocks and large sticks), then shoveling back into the beds.

The gorilla carts do have a dump feature, but the height doesn't work out with 12" tall beds. I'll be looking at that some more today though.

 

[EddieWalker]

Just remember that after you get the beds full of dirt this year, they will need more dirt next year after this year's dirt settles. But that's when we ad compost and other things that require more money and trips to Lowes