Building a Garden Fence, Part III - The Big Reveal

When I worked for a large restaurant corporation, one of my colleagues had said that he really wanted to grow vegetables at home, but his wife rejected the idea because she believed vegetable gardens were ugly. I was a little shocked, even a bit wounded by such a remark. I tried to assure him that they could be beautiful spaces and even emailed him photos of my Orlando garden to illustrate the point. His wife was unmoved. That has been in my mind ever since, and it has informed the way I think about vegetable gardens.

This garden has long been a dream of mine. I have imagined it for years. I've sketched out plans for it in my graph paper notebook. When we moved to this house, I saw that the garden could become a reality. There have been many preparations made for this space, lots of measuring, plan revising, plowing, building, and so on. Now that it is basically finished, I must admit that I have shed quite a few tears lately. It is one thing to dream about something. It is quite another to actually see it take physical shape. After working on the center fountain and surrounding plantings one morning, I walked into the house with tears in my eyes. My stepson noticed and asked what was wrong. "Oh, nothing," I replied. "It's just so beautiful up there, and I sometimes I can't believe it's actually looking better than I had imagined." I suspect he just added that to the file of "Weird Things Becky Says." Strange or not, as each element has come to completion, I have found myself weeping happily.

And so, what follows is a series of photos that will hopefully capture the joy that we have built here.

After seeing a blue door in a garden featured in Gardens Illustrated, I've always wanted one for my own garden, so that's what I painted all three doors after I built them.

The front door welcomes guests

We have done all the labor ourselves. We set the posts, built all of the sections between the posts, and stretched and attached the chicken wire to the lower portions. Our fingers are sore.

The view from the orchard

The back center does have a glaring gap in the fence. That's where my eventual greenhouse will go.

The view from above

View from the barn side

My mom insisted that I should have a place to sit down in the garden, which gave us another good reason to visit the antique shops. We found this chair in the perfect color of blue.

A place to rest for a moment

The hoops are made from bending electrical conduit. I've stretched bird netting over them and attached the netting with zip ties. The beans love scrambling over them. 

Beans climbing up their arches

The welcome sign on the front door and this beautiful green man were made by MyGardenGoddess and can be found on Etsy. They really are perfect and quite detailed.

Our watchman

It's hard to remember now what the space looked like before, so here's a little reminder.

Before

And a very satisfying after

When night falls, we can see the lights up in the garden casting a soft glow. They are made from Ball jars with dismantled solar lights placed in the mouths. They're attached to the posts with plumbing straps, and they give the garden a nice finish.