Fenced In

new garden cages
Originally uploaded by emira

This year I'm continuing with my square foot garden approach to veggie growing in the back yard. Because the dirt supply in each box is fairly limited and I do a fair bit of crop rotation each season using up a lot of nutrients, I had more dirt delivered at the beginning of the growing season so that I could cycle some of the old dirt out. I could have just added some compost but unfortunately, over the winter Mr. Pluto decided that the square dirt boxes were just too much like the perfect massive feline toilet for him to resist. Ugh. While he was great at staying out of them during the growing season last year, as they sat dormant he made them his home. Or rather: his bathroom. So, this left me with the need to dig out all of the dirt and replace it.

And, of course, old habits die hard so he began to inch his way back to the newly replenished boxes. It was at that point (and all this was way back in May now -- I've been a wee bit busy around here to keep up) that Martin made me some "walls" for each box. we made them out of scrap lumber and some chickenwire, which I cut to size. Each wall is removable so that I can get in and weed/turnover dirt/harvest, but they're enough of a barrier to keep out nosy cats. They're quite perfect really, though I'm almost positive I see Pluto staring at them with disdain from the deck above.

Comments

[lsaspacey]

But he could just climb over them or is that enough of a hassle to keep him out?

[emira]

No, it seems to be enough of a hassle to keep him out. He's got lots of other garden to dig in that I'm less concerned about tainting as it doesn't grow our food.