The Boss finally took time to read this blog in which he figures so prominently (finally, after like 12 years) and he had some feedback. One of his first comments was, “I can’t believe you haven’t written about the fence.” I have to admit that hadn’t occurred to me. I should not take it for granted, our garden would be defenseless without it. So here you go Boss.

Gardeners can get pretty hard core when it comes to protecting their gardens. As I mentioned in my last post, we are fighting a war on three fronts, one of which has four legs and wants to devour everything that has survived the bugs. The fight is on a completely different level from the War on Bugs. This is where the fight can get bloody.

It’s no longer chemical warfare. Small weaponry can work well and traps are effective, but may involve getting too close for comfort and can get a little gnarly. Dogs are excellent at keeping critters out of the garden, but those bums sleep inside at night. On the four legged front, the best offense is a good fence.

Varmints like deer, groundhogs, rabbits and coons will wipe out your garden in the cover of the night. So unless you are prepared to hide out in a hunting blind all night, a fence is your best bet.

This fence is a 20-year labor of love (of corn)

The Boss has built Fort Knox to deal with the situation. It’s been 20 years in the making. He didn’t start out with such a secure barrier. We started with a water scarecrow, a motion-detector sprinkler contraption that startles the deer out of the garden.

Over time it evolved to a short chickenwire fence to keep out the little critters, then it grew taller to keep out the deer. He also tried a three-line electric fence around the garden, but that became too difficult to maintain with all the other stuff growing around the garden perimeter, which would interfere with the electric current (I’m looking at you hops. )

None of those defensive tactics affected the raccoons. That’s when he started constructing Fort Knox — but instead of protecting the US Treasury, our fence protects the Boss’ treasure, corn.

When the coons got into the corn, it was all out war and he wasn’t messing around anymore. Those little bandits will wait until the corn is just about ready and take one bite out of each cob, trashing the entire corn patch in one evening.

Crop damage. The raccoons snuck in to taste test the corn and see if it was ready yet. They took out a row then must have decided it needed a few more days. No worries, the Boss is prepared to zap the crap out of them.

He cemented in over a dozen treated 4x4s, wrapped them in chicken wire up to ten feet, and buried extra fencing at the bottom to keep out any critter that might try to squeeze under the fence. For those creatures considering climbing over the top, he added even more treated lumber and an electric kicker all around the top perimeter. If a coon tries to scale the fence, he’s in for a rude awakening. The Boss fantasizes about zapping the crap out of those coons sneaking in to get his corn. I think he built the fence solely to protect his corn. That is a shit ton of work just for a few ears of corn. But the Boss really likes his corn.

Cheers to de Fence! Not only does it serve to protect our garden, it also looks pretty. The Boss gardens with a measuring tape, of course our fence is going to have an aesthetic vibe.