Critter-Proof Cage & Garden Update

Our little seedlings are still chillin' out clinging to life in their mini greenhouse and while they wait we are trying to get the rest of our yard & garden ready for transplanting. You may remember we had quite a problem with bunnies (and squirrels) eating all of our plants last time. So this year we hopefully found a way to at least keep them out of our small salad & herb garden.

We built a simple frame and covered it with chicken wire so the little furry fiends can't get in. It's made with 1x2s 1x3s so it's pretty lightweight. We just lift it off of the garden when we need in for planting or weeding. I realize "garden" is a strong word here. So far we have chives & sage that popped up from last year.

To build it we started with two square sections like this. The ends are 1x3s (because we had them left over and they were long enough) and the long sides are 1x2s we purchased for the project. We made it just big enough to sit on the sides of our raised bed, but if we did a bed that didn't sit against the house we would have made it a little larger fit around the outside of the bed and sit on the ground.

We screwed the ends together.

Added legs to the corners (I totally went with "this looks tall enough for what we're growing here").

And added the other square section on top. We also added some support legs in the middle of the long sides, but I didn't get a picture of that.

And my boys covered the whole thing with chicken wire. We use a staple gun to attach the wire to the frame.

All done! Now we just wait and see if they can find a way in. :)

I picked up some lettuce, spinach, and herbs at the farmers market so this should be looking full and happy soon!

As for the rest of the yard, we added some more strawberry plants down the side of the driveway. Just because it seemed like an out-of-the-way place... so hopefully I don't drive over them.

You can see our composter in the background. I have to leave the lid cracked because Big Brother is always on the hunt for worms and likes to toss them in there.

We have Irises popping up all around the garage.

On the other side of the garage we added some raspberry bushes that so far look like sticks in the ground. Hopefully they turn into something.

Strawberries are coming back along the side of the garage.

More irises and day lilies by the patio.

A little baby rhubarb.

Some kind of bush along the side of the house. We were looking at these the other day and think we'd like to pull them out and put in something different like blueberry bushes... you know, something that we can eat! Might as well make it useful, right?

The other big new in the backyard is that we have a swing set! Some friends were moving and gifted it to us, and Big Brother has played on it every day!

That's where we're at so far. We still have quite a bit to do as far as getting the big garden ready, but our plants aren't quite ready yet anyway. So for now we're just baby-stepping it as fast as we can! You know, when we're not totally distracted by two little bundles of energy.

Big Brother's new thing is to "rooooaaaaarrrr!" when I take his picture. Like a dino.

Are you getting your yard & garden ready for summer? Or are you way ahead of us and ready to go?

P.S. Don't forget to check out our brainstorming session with Sherwin-Williams and enter their giveaway here!