Fencing off the beds

I’m not proud to admit that our vegetable garden has been somewhat neglected of late.  The early harvesting of our vegetables has led to me being a tad slipshod in my care of the beds. The hot lingering summer hasn’t helped matters, the thought of frazzling to a crisp in order to pull out a few weeds really didn’t tempt me into having a good tidy up. Thank goodness then that autumn is here and the gardening fervour that I had during the spring has resurfaced and given me a gentle nudge in the right direction coaxing me into getting a grip of myself, a reminder to get the garden in order before the onset of winter. These past few days I took that grip from around my neck and put my hands to better use by beginning my autumn tidy up.

So with hubby on board we at long last got around to bringing some kind of order back to the garden, the first job being to put right and add barriers around the vegetable beds (I did the sawing and lugging about of the wood). With dogs on the roam, it has proven essential to create some form of barrier to protect our little harvest.  A low wooden fence has been ideal for this and has, so far and to our complete surprise, acted as a fairly good deterrent. Last year we added 4 more beds to our existing 8 leaving us with a grand total of 12 beds. I can tell you’re impressed with my maths, now just hang on there while I pop the calculator back in the drawer. Just kidding

Now what with renovating and this and that we never actually got around to fencing off these new beds.  Then of course we introduced our new arrival Bessie to our weird and wonderful gardening world.  Funny, lively Bessie who can’t veer around, keep away from, off of, or generally keep her nose out of anything.  Gardens must be such amazing fun to a new pup, so much land to roam around and new objects to sniff at. Predictably when you mix dog with garden it’s bound to create a recipe for disaster as far as the growing vegetables are concerned. Looking back, I think we’ve done remarkably well to salvage anything from the garden this summer!

Don’t look at me like that missy, you know it’s you I’m referring to

We had to replace many of the older barriers because they had split and broken off.  This was down to 3 factors, the extreme weather conditions had caused them to shrink and become brittle, the dogs were known to, on occasion, fall against them whilst on course for the bottom of the garden and lastly but most significantly, hubby is renowned for being a bit heavy handed with the lawn mower. Mind you if I’m honest, the wood wasn’t of the best quality to start with. Hubby, it looks like you’re off the hook.

The most ridiculous thing about all this is that the dogs are quite capable of jumping the silly little fences, however it does make Bess think twice and that is the whole objective of the exercise.  It helps to create a sense of structure to the garden too, it’s clear to see where one bed ends and the other begins and I like that.

The overall result is not elegant I’ll admit but it is practical and at the end of the day that is all that counts.  That and being able to pick vegetables that haven’t been trampled in to the ground by 3 rather exuberant dogs. There are still 3 beds to finish fencing off and then the big dig is on to get all the beds ready for the spring.  We’ve made a start, it feels good!

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