Fencing is expensive! I’m talking paddock defining, animal enclosing here, not the d’Artagnan en garde stuff, but with all that specialised equipment, I imagine that’s not cheap either. Anyway, the cost of farm fencing is huge and, while Steve from Summerfield Fencing is a top bloke who tried his best to make it less so, our dream of fully deer/goat fencing…the property?..maybe a paddock?..how much for just one boundary.?.sigh…just wasn’t achievable at this point. And that is why we are starting a new vegetable garden from scratch.
See, on moving in (once Steve had given us our fence reality check) we needed a prison paddock for our goat girls and the only area with maximum security to goat level was the previous owners vege patch.
Another area, on the sunnier side of the house, was selected for what will one day be The Winter Garden (on that same, glorious one day we will be fully fenced and the goat prison will become The Summer Garden) and ground preparation began.
Thirteen chickens and a rooster go a long way to breaking soil. With their work done, the poultry has now moved to a new address and we called in the services of another animal altogether.
The local Lions grow, harvest and then sell peastraw as their main fundraiser. Our ordering of fifty bales of their finest was one of our more brilliant ideas of late. Not only does it provide a cost effective makeshift vegetable garden border,
it also gave us the perfect introduction to our new community as the lovely couple who dropped the straw off had lived in the area forever, knew everyone, and were keen to add us to that list.
Our next job is to try a bit of fencing out for ourselves. An unfenced vege garden is the equivalent of a free all-you-can-eat buffet to a rabbit, so needs must.
It’s a slow process as our soil is very stony, but we’re getting there…one post at a time
Union Homestead 
Good luck with the home built fencing, may it eventually keep out the rabbits. Sorry professional fencing was out of reach for the time being.
I don’t really expect anything we attempt will be utterly rabbit proof, but hopefully it will slow them down 😊
What a disappointment for you! We still have parts of our land unfenced because of the cost. Not much money and lots of land means everything takes ages to get done. It is work in progress, which is good! Sometimes this waiting time means we have the opportunity to make better, improved plans as we get to really know and appreciate the land we have. Good luck with the rabbit fences! We have very little trouble from rabbits these days because of a number of diseases affecting them.
We have more than enough rabbits for the both of us. Another post dug in today…more than one a day and our arms turn to spaghetti😊
🙂
Oh dear the price of fencing must have been a shock! Having spent $30,000 on a retaining wall at our previous property I am not one bit surprised….
Ah well…something to aspire to, I guess😊
love you you and yours
Hi, all that lovely manure being provided by the goats and poultry will contribute to more fertile soil and bountiful harvests.
It’s our interpretation of the permaculture cycle 😊
Alas, the cost of things often interferes with our vision. Onward, ho!
Often it acts in our favour as what is seen as a necessity initially uncannily becomes totally unimportant in the long run
Been away, so just saw this. I can tell you from experience that the en garde kind of fencing is definitely cheaper than the kind that keeps creatures in or out. Been there on both counts. I just saw a book recentl on straw bale gardening…your load of pea straw looks just the thing. We contend with rabbits and deer around here and once again, I have no veg garden at all (well, one zucchini plant – does that count?) Is it called zucchini in NZ – or courgette? Sounds like you’ve just acquired one of the greatest assets for living in a rural area – a long time local is pure gold.
Hope you had an exciting jaunt away. We’re hoping the peastraw will see us right for a couple of season while we save the pennies, well cents, and hone our fencing skills. I’d like it to be a little bit better than “that’ll do 😊
As someone without a single vege in the garden, I would definitely say one courgette/zucchini count. As for their name, we’re not fussy. Boot/truck, jumper/jersey/sweater, we speak all languages…just don’t talk to me in Fahrenheit – I have no idea.