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Need Advice on Fencing a Small Vegetable Garden
I am trying to fence a small vegetable garden to prevent rabbits from
eating my string beans. By the way, I am living in northern New Jersey area. - How tall the fence should be? Is 2-ft tall enough? Rabbits in this area are not that big. They are around 3/4-ft long when they are sitting on the ground. - I am planning to use a wooden fence with stiff plastic net mounted on the fence. My question is: What type of wood should I use? Is pressure treated wood good? Because it is a vegetable garden, I am afraid that using pressure treated wood may not be appropriate (I don't really know if I am worrying too much). Should I use pressure treated wood as poles, and use cedar for the rest of the fence? Should I use cedar to make the whole fence, and use metal pole-footers/pole-anchors for ground contact? I welcome any suggestion. Thanks. Jay Chan |
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Need Advice on Fencing a Small Vegetable Garden
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#3
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Need Advice on Fencing a Small Vegetable Garden
"Jay Chan" wrote in message m... I am trying to fence a small vegetable garden to prevent rabbits from eating my string beans. By the way, I am living in northern New Jersey area. - How tall the fence should be? Is 2-ft tall enough? Rabbits in this area are not that big. They are around 3/4-ft long when they are sitting on the ground. They can probably jump a 2 ft fence. Then again, I have rabbits in the area where I live that have never bothered with my fenced in garden that's only 1 1/2 high. The only reason I use fencing is to keep chipmunks out. - I am planning to use a wooden fence with stiff plastic net mounted on the fence. My question is: What type of wood should I use? Is pressure treated wood good? Because it is a vegetable garden, I am afraid that using pressure treated wood may not be appropriate (I don't really know if I am worrying too much). Should I use pressure treated wood as poles, and use cedar for the rest of the fence? Should I use cedar to make the whole fence, and use metal pole-footers/pole-anchors for ground contact? I welcome any suggestion. Thanks. Jay Chan Regular wood may last you several years if you don't mind rebuilding it. |
#4
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Need Advice on Fencing a Small Vegetable Garden
"Jay Chan" wrote in message m... I am trying to fence a small vegetable garden to prevent rabbits from eating my string beans. By the way, I am living in northern New Jersey area. I am planning to fence in my garden this year, too, and was toying with the idea of using copper pipe for the fence posts. I've seen garden ornaments and trellises made of copper pipe; they look nice and seem to hold up to the elements. I wonder if there are downsides to this (beyond not being able to nail/staple the fencing material directly to the posts)? My bet is it would last longer than untreated wood... |
#5
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Need Advice on Fencing a Small Vegetable Garden
Jay Chan wrote:
I am trying to fence a small vegetable garden to prevent rabbits from eating my string beans. By the way, I am living in northern New Jersey area. - How tall the fence should be? Is 2-ft tall enough? Rabbits in this area are not that big. They are around 3/4-ft long when they are sitting on the ground. - I am planning to use a wooden fence with stiff plastic net mounted on the fence. My question is: What type of wood should I use? Is pressure treated wood good? Because it is a vegetable garden, I am afraid that using pressure treated wood may not be appropriate (I don't really know if I am worrying too much). Should I use pressure treated wood as poles, and use cedar for the rest of the fence? Should I use cedar to make the whole fence, and use metal pole-footers/pole-anchors for ground contact? I welcome any suggestion. Thanks. Jay Chan Are these bush beans or pole beans? If they are small enough it won't make a difference. Make a cover for the rows out of chicken wire. Just bend it into a mound shape -- like a little quonset hut. You don't need any wood. If the rabbits are really bad you'll also have to close the ends. When the bean plants start hitting the cover and trying to grow though it, I remove the cover and the rabbits leave them alone. They only seem to want the very young sprouts. Bob -- Have a Windows® computer that is powered on for hours at a time? Join the search for a cure for cancer: http://grid.org/projects/cancer/ |
#6
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Need Advice on Fencing a Small Vegetable Garden
I used to grow my cucs, pole beans, snow peas, and summer spinach on an
upright trellis. I was very limited on space and it worked out great. The reason I'm telling you this is because I think my setup might be appropriate for your bunny situation. I bought 6' green fence posts (metal with hooks running up to the top) from Home Depot and then stretched heavy duty (you can double it too) bird block netting between the posts. The netting can be hooked on the metal hooks and secured with string or twine. You could buy shorter fence posts and use the netting at the bottom of the posts to keep them out. Pressure treated wood should not be used in vegetable gardens because they contain arsenic. Another deterrent for bunnies is to sprinkle a granular product that contains fox/coyote urine around the outside edges of your garden. There are different products out there, so I didn't name names. I think one is called Shake Away. It may be worthwhile to try it. Good luck, Penny Zone 7b - North Carolina "Jay Chan" wrote in message m... I am trying to fence a small vegetable garden to prevent rabbits from eating my string beans. By the way, I am living in northern New Jersey area. - How tall the fence should be? Is 2-ft tall enough? Rabbits in this area are not that big. They are around 3/4-ft long when they are sitting on the ground. - I am planning to use a wooden fence with stiff plastic net mounted on the fence. My question is: What type of wood should I use? Is pressure treated wood good? Because it is a vegetable garden, I am afraid that using pressure treated wood may not be appropriate (I don't really know if I am worrying too much). Should I use pressure treated wood as poles, and use cedar for the rest of the fence? Should I use cedar to make the whole fence, and use metal pole-footers/pole-anchors for ground contact? I welcome any suggestion. Thanks. Jay Chan |
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Need Advice on Fencing a Small Vegetable Garden
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#8
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Need Advice on Fencing a Small Vegetable Garden
Check the price per foot on copper pipe and then add in the cost of the
angles you'll need, and the cost of the solder gun etc to put it together. "Shelly" wrote in message ... "Jay Chan" wrote in message m... I am trying to fence a small vegetable garden to prevent rabbits from eating my string beans. By the way, I am living in northern New Jersey area. I am planning to fence in my garden this year, too, and was toying with the idea of using copper pipe for the fence posts. I've seen garden ornaments and trellises made of copper pipe; they look nice and seem to hold up to the elements. I wonder if there are downsides to this (beyond not being able to nail/staple the fencing material directly to the posts)? My bet is it would last longer than untreated wood... |
#9
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Need Advice on Fencing a Small Vegetable Garden
Till the ground where the fence will be. Then I use a plastic wire that
looks like chicken wire but is quicker to put it up. Your home supply store will probably have 1x1 or so posts about 30 inches long that are more or less scrap wood. Or you can use plain deck rails, little more expensive but you can use the cheapest ones you can find. Put up the posts, stretch the plastic wire, staple with a staple gun,. I fold over a few inches of the wire on the ground facing out to discourage digging. Then scratch in some Preen so that you don't have weeds in the little fence. You can take it down (just roll it up is fine) once everything is going pretty good and the lettuce is over. Grand total for 30x40 is about $10. Spending a lot on materials sort of defeats the financial benefit of growing food. Spending a lot of time on fence takes time away from other things. "Jay Chan" wrote in message m... I am trying to fence a small vegetable garden to prevent rabbits from eating my string beans. By the way, I am living in northern New Jersey area. - How tall the fence should be? Is 2-ft tall enough? Rabbits in this area are not that big. They are around 3/4-ft long when they are sitting on the ground. - I am planning to use a wooden fence with stiff plastic net mounted on the fence. My question is: What type of wood should I use? Is pressure treated wood good? Because it is a vegetable garden, I am afraid that using pressure treated wood may not be appropriate (I don't really know if I am worrying too much). Should I use pressure treated wood as poles, and use cedar for the rest of the fence? Should I use cedar to make the whole fence, and use metal pole-footers/pole-anchors for ground contact? I welcome any suggestion. Thanks. Jay Chan |
#10
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Need Advice on Fencing a Small Vegetable Garden
DH has a solder gun and a pipe cutter I can use, so I am set there. Also, we
have a shop near our house that resells left-over materials from new home construction. It seems I can get a good deal on the copper piping there. Do you happen to know if I need a special kind of solder for an outdoor application? ...and I wonder if it would be possible to solder the fencing material directly to the copper pipes? I had been thinking I would have to use wire to affix it... "Tim B" wrote in message ... Check the price per foot on copper pipe and then add in the cost of the angles you'll need, and the cost of the solder gun etc to put it together. "Shelly" wrote in message ... "Jay Chan" wrote in message m... I am trying to fence a small vegetable garden to prevent rabbits from eating my string beans. By the way, I am living in northern New Jersey area. I am planning to fence in my garden this year, too, and was toying with the idea of using copper pipe for the fence posts. I've seen garden ornaments and trellises made of copper pipe; they look nice and seem to hold up to the elements. I wonder if there are downsides to this (beyond not being able to nail/staple the fencing material directly to the posts)? My bet is it would last longer than untreated wood... |
#11
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Need Advice on Fencing a Small Vegetable Garden
good questions. if you have a plumber friend, they deal with copper pipe a
lot and can give better advice than I could. "Shelly" wrote in message ... DH has a solder gun and a pipe cutter I can use, so I am set there. Also, we have a shop near our house that resells left-over materials from new home construction. It seems I can get a good deal on the copper piping there. Do you happen to know if I need a special kind of solder for an outdoor application? ...and I wonder if it would be possible to solder the fencing material directly to the copper pipes? I had been thinking I would have to use wire to affix it... "Tim B" wrote in message ... Check the price per foot on copper pipe and then add in the cost of the angles you'll need, and the cost of the solder gun etc to put it together. "Shelly" wrote in message ... "Jay Chan" wrote in message m... I am trying to fence a small vegetable garden to prevent rabbits from eating my string beans. By the way, I am living in northern New Jersey area. I am planning to fence in my garden this year, too, and was toying with the idea of using copper pipe for the fence posts. I've seen garden ornaments and trellises made of copper pipe; they look nice and seem to hold up to the elements. I wonder if there are downsides to this (beyond not being able to nail/staple the fencing material directly to the posts)? My bet is it would last longer than untreated wood... |
#12
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Need Advice on Fencing a Small Vegetable Garden
Shelly wrote:
DH has a solder gun and a pipe cutter I can use, so I am set there. Also, we have a shop near our house that resells left-over materials from new home construction. It seems I can get a good deal on the copper piping there. Do you happen to know if I need a special kind of solder for an outdoor application? ...and I wonder if it would be possible to solder the fencing material directly to the copper pipes? I had been thinking I would have to use wire to affix it... You don't use a soldering gun for copper pipe, you use a torch. Any kind of solid-core solder would work (except silver solder, but you are unlikely to get that anyway.) And you need soldering flux. It's all pretty cheap until you get to pipe sizes bigger than 3/4". The fencing will not solder to the copper pipe; and it would look bad anyway. Just tie it on. You might solder little loops of sturdy copper wire to the top pipe for tie points. Best regards, Bob |
#13
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Need Advice on Fencing a Small Vegetable Garden
Thanks for all the useful information that I have received here.
I will stay away from pressure treated wood completely. I will use metal pole anchors as the base, put regular soft wood pole on the metal pole anchors, and use stripes of regular soft wood for the rest of the fence. And I will paint the soft wood using red-wood color paint from top to bottom in order to reduce the chance of having termites getting into the soft wood too soon (I am hoping that the fence can last at least 5 years...). The color will also match my red-wood color deck that is just a couple feet away from the vegetable garden. I will make the fence 3-feet too instead of just 2-feet. And I will construct it in a way that I can easily take the fence down. I will see how thing goes in the coming weeks. Thanks again. Jay Chan |
#14
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Need Advice on Fencing a Small Vegetable Garden
I have cedar stakes hubby put points on. For fencing, Ive used nylon
net [Walmart] poly sheer curtains cut lengthwise [thumbtacked on] and of course rabbit fencing- it spraypaints quite well]. I like the curtains best because they help break the wind and retard drying the soil; the rabbits and ducks dont seem to like the movement. You can easily adjust height by folding or leaving more on the ground. Net stretches- It better for winding around tomatoes, etc Helps shade plants too All is easily washed [rinse Well], You can make any of these look nice. |
#15
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Need Advice on Fencing a Small Vegetable Garden
I use 8 foot chain link with metal poles and two rows of concertina wire
on top. The rabbits we get are much larger and with horns. Al |
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