The Garden

It occurred to me the other day that I've talked about the veggies I'm growing (okay, attempting to grow...keep your fingers crossed!) in the garden, but not about the garden itself.  Remember how I told you we moved into the house that The Farmer's grandparents built and lived in for almost 50 years?  Well one of the amazing things they left for us was the garden space.  

Because we live out in the country, it can be a challenge to grow produce that doesn't get eaten, trampled, or stolen by rabbits, raccoons, deer, and other wildlife. The Farmer's grandpa had marked off an area to be used as a garden.  He then fenced the whole area to keep critters out, and even lined the bottom half of the fence with panels of tin to keep small animals from being able to get in through spaces in the fencing.

 Here's a picture of the fenced garden.  From the spot where I took the picture above, in front of me is obviously the garden and behind me is our driveway.  Since the garden is one of the first things you see when you pull in the driveway, and it's not the prettiest thing, I'm adding some perennial flowers and shrubs just outside the garden.  Hopefully these will grow up tall and hide the tin paneling.

That in itself is a pretty sweet garden setup, but they didn't stop there.  Certain animals are pretty smart and can climb the fence, especially when enticed by almost ripe melons, sweet corn, etc.  To prevent this, The Farmer's grandpa went around the whole thing several times with electric fencing.  This time of the year the electric fencing is not on, because there is no ripening fruit or veggies yet for animals to want to steal.  We won't have to turn on the electricity until we have produce that's ripening.

A challenge about using this particular spot for a garden is that it is quite a ways from the house.  There is no pump or water source out there, so the water for it has to come from the house.  I don't know about you, but dragging a garden hose and trying to get it to go where you want and not kink up seems like a big pain to me.  Rather than drag a hose out there and then have to roll up the hose each time he wanted to mow, The Farmer's grandpa decided to hook the hose up at the house and bury the hose underground to run it out to the garden.

All I know is it's going to get very interesting once we turn on the electric fence.  For one thing, Harlee has never been around an electric fence and has no idea what it will do.  She knows she's not allowed in the garden space, even if the gate is open (I don't want her trampling my plants or digging them up, which are two of her favorite past-times), but she does sniff around the perimeter from time to time.  I'm guessing one good zap to her nose is going to scare her out of going anywhere near the garden, but time will tell.

Stay tuned for the "Harlee is terrified of the garden" blog post. :)