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I never thought I’d be a gardener. NEVERMIND build a fenced-in garden Gardener. Every plant ever gifted to me was dead within the week.
I’m not really sure when my mindset changed, but I found myself last year desperate to have a veggie garden. My husband’s parents always had one, so he was all in on my wacky ass idea to construct and start a garden in the middle of April. It was the first step in my master plan to create the ultimate backyard oasis!
If you’ve had a garden before, then you’ll understand that starting a garden in April is pretty ballsy. But it was peak C*VID quarantine and I was really convinced we’d never leave the house again.
Sun Seekers
Our backyard is essentially a ski slope. The few flat parts are entirely shaded, so we had to get a little creative with our location. There’s a nice sunny spot in our side yard, but it was completely covered in rogue grape vines and bramble that a previous next door neighbor planted 20+ years ago and failed to maintain. This project was going to be an uphill battle.
My husband borrowed a mini excavator from his job one warm April weekend, and during the precious free time we had while our daughter napped we cleared the land where our fenced-in garden would be. I even got to operate briefly and it was thrilling! Once the above ground stuff was taken care of, we had to address the deep root system these vines had created.
There’s a common saying in the gardening world that goes, your garden can only be as good as the soil you use… or something like that. So we knew we had to really get the soil to a good spot before we started planting. We dug out the majority of the big roots with the mini, and then went back through and got more by hand. We also had a load of compost-blend soil delivered to really give us the best chances of success.
Before we built the garden out, my husband and I discussed what we wanted to plant. Lots of plants require 3+ feet of spacing between them and that would really limit what we had room for. We came to the agreement that the dimensions of the garden would be 15′ x 30′. This would give us plenty of space to work with without eating up too much of the side yard.
Building the enclosure
Using 4×4 lumber, we framed out the perimeter. We bought 4″x4″x12′ lengths and cut them in half. The goal was to dig ~2ft holes to put the posts in. This would ensure their stability over time. We started with the 4 corners and filled the holes with dry cement, tamped it down, then filled the remaining space with dirt. Putting in dry cement would give us a little wiggle room, and also saved us time by not pre-mixing it with water. Eventually the cement would be exposed to rain and harden on its own.
We then added posts where the gate would be. Following the same steps, we placed them centered on the front wall of the fenced-in garden. We added 2 additional posts on the front wall for some extra stability. We backed the garden up against the fence separating our property and our neighbor’s, so we only had to worry about 3 walls.
Then we added cross beams along the top and bottom of the fence. This would ensure the posts would be strong and stable, and also gave us something to staple the wire fencing to. Depending on how big/ how permanent you want your garden to be, this could be considered an extra step.
We built a simple gate. They sell hardware kits for gates, so we got one of those which made it fairly straightforward to install. We laid some stone in the walkway of the gate, mostly for aesthetics.
Next, we stapled the wire fencing to the posts. For the beginners reading this, its necessary to keep out larger animals like deer, fox, etc.
Bonus: We bought post caps to finish off the fencing.
A little dirt never hurt
Before we built the fence, we had a load of organic compost-blend soil delivered and dumped in the garden area. We worked around that while building the fence, and now it was time to spread it out. Like I mentioned before, its really important to have a good foundation to work with so your plants have the best chance at thriving.
We spread out the soil with rakes into an even layer. Getting enough soil delivered to add about 1ft. of depth all over was important. This would allow our plants to create nice, deep root systems in the good stuff before it hit the old dirt, if at all.
Once the soil was spread, we added landscaping fabric on top. This layer of non-woven fabric would help stop any weeds from cropping up, AND help with water retention/distribution. While this is not absolutely necessary to add, it would save countless hours of weeding throughout the growing season- a worthy investment.
Using spray paint, we marked out where each plant would go, and cut x’s into the fabric. Planning where each plant will go is crucial in having a successful garden. There are countless things to consider when plotting your garden: we prioritized sun coverage, companion planting, and spacing. Ease of access is also something to consider. Its hard to visualize how big some of these plants will get, but once they are full size it can become very difficult to work your way through what you may have considered ample walking space originally.
Veggie Queen, reporting for duty
When the temps were right, we planted! We obviously started this project way too late in the season to work from seed, so we went to our local nursery and got starters of all the plants we thought we could manage. There was a crazy late frost that we narrowly avoided, and planted right before Memorial Day. Getting as many organic plants as we could find was important. I planned on making a lot of food for my daughter who was just starting solids and I wanted to feel good about what I was feeding her.
I was so obsessed with our fenced-in garden once everything was planted! I’d go out there every day and check on them, water when needed, and generally familiarize myself with how everything was growing since this was my first season with a garden. Even though we managed to do this with a fairly small budget, we had invested a ton of time and energy into making this happen in such a short window and I couldn’t bear the thought of failure.
I still can’t believe we built our fenced-in garden in one weekend! I think it was the best thing we could have done with our newly forced solitude from C*VID. Did I convince you to build a garden this year? Tell me in the comments!
