topic Re: Goodbye Vegetable Garden. Hello Reality! in Garden

Goodbye Vegetable Garden. Hello Reality!

On It — Sat, 04 May 2024 15:28:47 GMT

My husband and I live in an area with abundant wildlife that we treasure. We have been trying to decide how to make a vegetable garden in our back area. We knew we needed a fence and have collected several ideas. We hoped to get it ready by next Spring.

A few minutes ago I watched an elk jump a neighbor's metal fence to graze in the pasture. It was the fence that adjoins this one. It is the same height and material. She jumped from a standing position on all fours and cleared the fence like a track star.

My husband thinks we will need an 8 foot or higher fence. Maybe we should do a greenhouse instead? We are dirt farmers accustomed to acreage and outdoor plantings. Is a greenhouse difficult to maintain? Is it worth the investment? Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated.

Re: Goodbye Vegetable Garden. Hello Reality!

cheriere — Sat, 04 May 2024 15:32:31 GMT

@On It

lol, I know just what you mean. While we don't have all the beautiful wildlife like you do, we sure have plenty deer and rabbits. That's why our garden is fenced high, not the prettiest either, but it does work.

Re: Goodbye Vegetable Garden. Hello Reality!

Carmie — Sat, 04 May 2024 15:41:38 GMT

I have deer who like to eat my foundation plants at the front of my house. They have destroyed hundreds of dollars worth of plants by eating them down to the roots.

I don't have a fence, but I have plastic forks. I mixed them in with some metal forks I got at the dollar store and pushed them into the ground. It does keep the deer out. They won't walk through the forks.

Maybe this will work for you. It's worth a try.

(stock photo, not my garden)

Re: Goodbye Vegetable Garden. Hello Reality!

Oldfshndhomemaker — Sat, 04 May 2024 15:47:26 GMT

Had to chime in on this one. My husband and I were market gardeners for many years with a couple acres of woods next to our property. A greenhouse must be "babysat." First think about being able to water. You also have to think about being able to get in the tunnel with equipment to fertilize and amend the beds, you don't want the equipment to pack down the soil. As for the elk....we had deer. I always heard at least a 9ft. Fence is recommended. With the greenhouse it must be opened in the morning or everything will burn up and closed at night or the nighttime critters will eat your crop. And when a storm comes by we would close and secure the tunnel to run back out and open it up again after the storm passed. And air flow is necessary you need fans and that means it needs electricity.

I am an at home person 90% of my time and enjoy QVC to keep me company. I read these forums all the time for years and often wanted to comment but was afraid of the negativity. This just happened to one of those subjects I thought I could lend some advice.

Re: Goodbye Vegetable Garden. Hello Reality!

On It — Sat, 04 May 2024 15:48:16 GMT

@cheriere Thank you for responding. Our concern is building a fence that is too short. Adding the extra height is going to be costly to prevent the strong winds we have each Spring from taking it down. An extra tall fence will need stronger materials and support posts buried in concrete. I still don't know if an outside garden would produce very much. Our growing season is short because of the late freeze date (May 27).

The produce in our stores is not good. Getting it to this remote location in a timely manner seems like it is not going to happen. The only really fresh items we get are Hatch chiles.

I am leaning toward a greenhouse, but they seem so small. I guess we would need to learn a lot about timing and crop rotation. I am lost.

Re: Goodbye Vegetable Garden. Hello Reality!

On It — Sat, 04 May 2024 15:50:23 GMT

@Carmie That is a clever idea. Thank you for sharing.

Re: Goodbye Vegetable Garden. Hello Reality!

ThinkingOutLoud — Sat, 04 May 2024 15:53:45 GMT

I know someone who does something similiar to this with drip irrigation. It keeps the critters out and it works well for their needs.

Re: Goodbye Vegetable Garden. Hello Reality!

On It — Sat, 04 May 2024 15:54:04 GMT

@Oldfshndhomemaker I appreciate your knowledge and wisdom. I had no way of understanding the complexity of using a greenhouse. Without your advice, we could have made a costly mistake. You explained exactly what I needed to know. Thank you.

Re: Goodbye Vegetable Garden. Hello Reality!

Still Raining — Sat, 04 May 2024 16:54:34 GMT

Around here, in addition to deer, rabbits and moles are problems. Also need to consider what type of equipment you wish to use, how wide is your tractor?

If you are starting from scratch, they do sell deer fence with bottom skirting for rabbits. Might want to check that price vs an add on.

If you are going to excavate for top soil, you can go a little deeper and put down metal mesh to keep out burrowing critters. But the posts will need attending to. Otherwise the best solution will be raised boxes with wire mesh bottoms.

Neighbor put in nice raised boxes and then set up portable fencing, like for construction. He takes it down at the end of the season. But that is a smaller area.

Re: Goodbye Vegetable Garden. Hello Reality!

Nightowlz — Sat, 04 May 2024 21:40:37 GMT

@Carmie wrote:
I have deer who like to eat my foundation plants at the front of my house. They have destroyed hundreds of dollars worth of plants by eating them down to the roots.

I don't have a fence, but I have plastic forks. I mixed them in with some metal forks I got at the dollar store and pushed them into the ground. It does keep the deer out. They won't walk through the forks.

Maybe this will work for you. It's worth a try.

(stock photo, not my garden)

@Carmie

I had to do that with my potted plants to keep the squirrels out. I think I put the upside down forks in the pots 3 years in a row. The past 2 years the squirrels have not been in the pots much? I will see what they do this year.

DH made round cages with some type chicken wire with smaller holes. He just places the cage over the plants so they can grow.

Re: Goodbye Vegetable Garden. Hello Reality!

Nightowlz — Sat, 04 May 2024 21:50:39 GMT

@On It

If you have never watched Homestead Rescue you should check it out.

The Raney family helps families living off the Grid figure out how to grow a garden when all the wildlife is eating the crops. They figure out to get them water if you can, how to build what you are living in to keep warm etc.

They have made greenhouses, gardens in all kinds of places using all kinds of different material. Things you would never think of. That should give you some ideas.

I think it's on the Discovery channel.

I need to find it to see how many new episodes there are. I think we watched all that was available when we ran across the show.

Re: Goodbye Vegetable Garden. Hello Reality!

Icegoddess — Sat, 04 May 2024 21:58:01 GMT

@Nightowlz wrote:
@Carmie wrote:
I have deer who like to eat my foundation plants at the front of my house. They have destroyed hundreds of dollars worth of plants by eating them down to the roots.

I don't have a fence, but I have plastic forks. I mixed them in with some metal forks I got at the dollar store and pushed them into the ground. It does keep the deer out. They won't walk through the forks.

Maybe this will work for you. It's worth a try.

(stock photo, not my garden)

@Carmie

I had to do that with my potted plants to keep the squirrels out. I think I put the upside down forks in the pots 3 years in a row. The past 2 years the squirrels have not been in the pots much? I will see what they do this year.
DH made round cages with some type chicken wire with smaller holes. He just places the cage over the plants so they can grow.

I call the forks forktresses. I have to use them in pots to keep the chipmunks & squirrels out, especially any freshly dug ground. They'll dig up the freshly planted plants and just toss them to the side. I'm always on the lookout for something I can use as a cage to put over emerging plants to keep the rabbits from eating them. However, most of them will not keep the squirrels and chipmunks out since they can go through the small holes. The forks won't keep the rabbits away. They might not eat what's in the middle of that bed, but they can stand on their back feet and get over the outside forks for a snack.

Re: Goodbye Vegetable Garden. Hello Reality!

Icegoddess — Sat, 04 May 2024 22:09:48 GMT

@On It I don't have any advice for you besides if you build a fence, it will need to be tall to keep deer/elk out of it. You could put a barbed wire section at the top that angles outwards which might also discourage them. I have also seen people around here cage their entire vegetable garden as in chain link across the top too.

I do have a greenhouse, but it's small, only 6x10, and you'll always want a larger one. Really wish mine was wider and taller too as it's a bit claustrophobic. I don't grow veggies in mine though, at least not in summer. I don't get enough sun in summer for veggies. I do try to grow some cool season veggies in winter though. More sun, though lower in the sky, since the leaves are off the trees. I do have to hand-carry water to mine which is a huge pain, but I do have minimal electric to run lights and a heater in winter.

If you're really wanting a greenhouse or high tunnel or something like that and you're on Facebook, you might look into joining a Greenhouse group to bounce ideas around and get advice.

Re: Goodbye Vegetable Garden. Hello Reality!

gardenman — Sun, 05 May 2024 10:59:38 GMT

We have an abundant deer population here, so local farmers will often plant a sacrificial crop in the end rows for the deer to feast on while keeping their cash crop safer. The end rows (tractor turn-around areas) tend not to be very productive anyway, but by planting a sacrificial deer-feeding crop (wheat, rye, oats, etc.) there they can better protect their main crop. If you can't beat them, feed them. Just feed them something they like more than your cash crop.

It's not a perfect solution as deer will occasionally wander past the end rows to get a snack, but it's pretty effective. If you have the land, giving the wildlife their own garden filled with crops they prefer is a good solution to wildlife issues. It can stop them from wanting to eat your crops. If your favorite food in the world is right in front of you, will you walk past it to eat something you don't like as much?

Re: Goodbye Vegetable Garden. Hello Reality!

On It — Mon, 06 May 2024 01:47:56 GMT

@gardenman That is a clever idea to sacrifice some of the outer plants. We never noticed what the wildlife took back in our farm days, but we only had small critters. The garden areas covered acres. Even the smaller areas that contained the higher maintenance plants next to our homes were not a particular problem.

Our situation here on the mountain is having to work with a small area of level land. Our house sits on a mountainside. We drove through a few neighborhoods. We saw no outdoor gardens. There were a handful of greenhouses in smaller sizes. We noticed a community garden at the ranger station enclosed by an extremely tall fence. We will talk to them later this week. My husband said he felt we should give up the idea of doing anything at our location entirely. The challenges of the wildlife coupled with the short growing season may mean it would not be a productive effort.

I really appreciate everyone's thoughts and suggestions. We took them to heart and pondered how to make it work.

Growing up on a farm spoiled me to fresh, picked-that-day foods. I need to let it go. Farmer's Markets that are scattered around this village during the summer and early fall are more craft show than fresh produce and there is probably a reason why.

Re: Goodbye Vegetable Garden. Hello Reality!

gardenman — Mon, 06 May 2024 11:36:54 GMT

@On It

You might want to consider a hoop house. The folks at Vevor have a 20'X10' one that's seven feet tall for just $161 at their site. (They call it a "walk-in tunnel greenhouse.") You might find a used hoop house on Facebook Marketplace also. Most used ones will need new covering though and that can cost as much as buying one new. A 10'X20' garden area can be utilized to grow a decent amount of food by using dense planting.

There are quite a few options available at a not too bad price. For well under $500 you can buy a hoop house that will extend your growing season and offer some protection from pests. (By the way, if you've never heard of Vevor, they seem to offer lots of support to various YouTubers who all say the products they get from them are very good. Granted, they're being given the stuff and want to keep more free stuff coming, but the reviews I've seen of their stuff seem pretty good.)