Ever since last fall’s episode of food poisoning, I’ve been meaning to finish enclosing the garden. However, I had to wait for the ground to thaw, and well, the freelance life means that finances have been just tight enough that I didn’t want to go out and buy copper pipe. But this weekend, I finally got it done. I tried to come up with some solution other than more expensive copper, but since I’d done the rest of the trellis/fences that way when I built the garden (this is summer number eight — how did that happen?), well, I just couldn’t bear the thought of two beds edged in pvc when the rest uses copper. So I sucked it up and spent the money.

The trellis/fencing is 1/2 inch copper plumbing pipe, and because I don’t know how to weld, I used duct tape for the joints. It was really easy to put together, and with the pipes jammed a foot or two into the ground inside the raised beds, and lashed to one another with zip ties, they withstand the wind nicely. So this weekend I enclosed the last two beds on the end of the garden, and strung them with nylon trellis. Unfortunately the trellis openings are large enough for chickens to get through, so I then stretched bird netting around the outside of the beds. I’ll need some help from the Sweetheart as far as gates go. Right now I’ve got an old piece of screening leaned up against the front opening, and that seems to be working — but once there are delicious greens inside the garden, I think I’m going to need something a little bit more formal to keep those chickens out.

But it looks nice, and I kind of like working inside the enclosed space. When I first built it I didn’t want to demark it from the rest of the yard so much, but now that it’s all enclosed, I’m finding it has a nice “secret garden” kind of vibe. And because the “fences” are just pipe and trellis, you can still see right through it.

Now if only real spring would come. And some rain would be nice. It’s so dry I’m having to water already.