YAY! The Fence is Done!!!!

The groundhog fence is up . . .

In the last few weeks, we finally finished installing the fence around our vegetable garden, finished adding the mowing strip pavers, and completed the mulch pathways which fill in the interior of the plot. There were a lot of stones encountered along the way; I have them piled up around the edges for now, but I think I may have other plans for them. Plus, installing these pavers was the equivalent of doing four hours' worth of chair-squats, so needless to say, I was walking a bit funny the week after they went in (ouch)!

We now have an awfully nice garden gate too, thanks to my husband Bill's fabulous handiwork. It is lined with chicken wire to keep out our little furry friends:

. . . and the gate is doing it's job!

And if you look closely to the picture above, you can see baby kale and collard plants in the raised bed - our first crop to christen the newly-upgraded garden!

I'm thinking of painting the gate and posts a dark green, mainly because we opted for non pressure-treated posts (due to possible chemical leaching into the ground). Going au naturale will for certain shorten the lifespan of these components. Painting them will afford a bit more protection than leaving them unfinished, and also make them blend in more with the surrounding fence and flora. Or maybe staining them, or maybe painting them a contrasting color . . . as you can see, I'm still on the fence (ha ha) with this decision.

In the end, this was a bigger project than I think either of us thought it would be. But we were fortunate in that we planned fairly well, measuring and buying just enough materials to complete our project (through sheer luck, the wire fence spool was literally the exact amount needed to completely enclose the plot).

And (of course), we haven't seen that groundhog since we first broke ground some weeks back. But I have no doubt that he will return the moment I forget to close the gate. So I suppose it was all worth it in the end . . . and I'm not talking about the chair squats, either!