We have been working so dang hard on our picket fence around the garden.  I wanted to give you all an update of how far into this project we are.  And, also I wanted to share how it’s turning out.

First off.. have I ever told you about the very first fence that we installed?  It was actually the very first huge DIY project that we did together. And, oh my gosh.. what a time.  Ha!  I am only guessing, but I think this was back in the year 2000.  I wanted a privacy fence around the back yard of my property in town.  And, I wanted a picket fence around the front.  The estimates started rolling in and I just couldn’t spend that much money at the time.  I was newly divorced so pennies were tight. 

Deb said, “Let’s try to do this ourselves.  It can’t be that hard.”

We did a little research and decided we needed to at least try.  Especially when the cost to do it ourselves was about 1/4 of the cost of having it installed professionally.  Let me set the scene. I lived on a one way street that was a main street to get to the high school in town.  It was also the third house from the corner.  So naturally, when people turned onto my street, they were going slow from just making the turn. 

I will never forget the Saturday that we started this project. 

Deb and I were on each side of a two-man post hole digger to dig our first hole.  The guy at the rental place told us to be very careful.  Because they were pretty powerful and if it hit a root, we could be flung across the yard.  So both of us were standing there talking ourselves into starting it.  And every car that turned the corner literally stopped in the middle of the street and stared at us. 

An older gentleman stopped, got out of the car, and said,

“LADIES.. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

We said, “Putting up a fence.”

“Have you done this before?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m not sure you should be doing this without help.  Those post hole diggers are powerful.”

The first hole was definitely the scariest and the hardest.  But, we got used to it.  We got onto a system and got the entire thing done in a few weekends.  That was the first of many picket or privacy fences that we have put up.  We actually said we were going to pay someone to do the one in the backyard of the house on Winchester (our old house).  And, the same thing happened.  We got the estimates and just didn’t want to spend that much money because we knew we could do it for 1/4 of the cost.

Now… onto the current picket fence project.

Our Picket Fence around the Garden

We have always planned on putting our vegetable garden here in this spot.  It’s outside of the woods in full sun and I think it’s the perfect place.  We both love creating different areas on our property that are not only beautiful, but also functional.  And, a place where we want to hang out.  However… we had to keep in mind that we see lots of wildlife.  One of the most common questions we kept getting regarding our vegetable garden was,

“How will you keep all of the critters out of your garden?”  

Well, we have always had this idea of adding a picket fence around our vegetable garden to not only protect the plants from critters, but to make this area stand out.  And, since we clearly are experts at installing fences…  why not?  Ha! 

Both of us absolutely love an english cottage garden feel.  And this will give us that look.  The vegetables will, of course, be planted inside the raised beds.  But the outside of the fence will be landscaped with boxwoods, hydrangeas, other plants along with a lot of herbs.  We will have a lane going back to the garden from our driveway.  And we will be adding a stone walking path to the chicken coop.  The chicken coop and their run, which is right beside the garden, will also be landscaped.  I want to add some boxwoods along with some plants that chickens love to eat.  We want to add a gate to the side facing the coop for easy access.  And, we will be building a grand entrance to the garden out of some wooden porch columns that were given to us. 

This is the look we are going for.  These columns are temporarily setting in place because we wanted to see if we would like it.  Both Deb and I are kind of over the top when it comes to projects like this so we wanted to make sure it didn’t look like a circus.  Ha!  And, everything, of course, needs straightened out because things are just temporarily in their places.

We hope to finish this entire project in the next few days and finally get the few vegetable plants that we have in the beds.  I know it’s late but we are still going to try.  I will be sharing it all here as well as social media.  So, stay tuned.

What do you think?

I absolutely love how this is turning out and cannot wait to get everything planted in our containers.

If you want to see what we have done so far to our veggie garden, check out this post.  I also shared all of the plans we have for this whole area in this post.