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  • From: Tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] Another Universal protector against garden predators
  • Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 11:23:48 -0800

Yeah---you can use a four-panel pain-projector that will drive off any four-footed menace---IF you have FULL coverage of a big garden, and the purchase price is tolerable.

This won't work against bears, but it will work against rabbits and deer. With the addition of a high-voltage scare wire, it will also work against raccoon. Oor dog has wiped out the once-numerous woodchucks so no one has to worry about them any more..

Anyway, here is the drill---surround the garden with two-foot high chickenwire---lower part buried in the ground. A lawn-edger attachment makes that easy, and so does pounding in six-foot high steel T-Bar fenceposts at twelve-foot intervals (brace the cornerposts with Wedgelocks, or two wood braces from top of cornerpost, to bottom of two adjacent lineposts. If you are really lazy, you can use a single wooden brace, notched at the top where it meets the steel cornerpost, and at the bottom nailed to a plywood plate which rests on the ground and pinned there by a piece of rebar to keep it locked in place.

Next, get for each steel post a durable wood post-extension six, preferably seven feet long. Tie three feet of the lower end to the steel fenceposts with seventeen-gage electric fencewire, or automotive stainless clamps used for clamping rubber tube to hose-barbs. Here, Juniper or Black Locust saplings are plentiful for post-extensions, and will last longer than you will.

To the post-extensions, wire-tie all around the garden, a four-foot high piece of cheap orange plastic snowfence. It is somewhat floppy, but deer view it as an impossible barrier to their jumping. Raccoon would view both chickenwire and plastic snowfence as an easily-climbed playpen, except for a high-voltage scare-wire at their junction. ..

A high-voltage scare wire at the juncture of chickenwire and orange plastic snowfence will keep raccoons at bay. For this purpose a solar-powered fence charger is handy. A high-voltage wire near the ground is quckly grounded out by weeds, but if mounted at the juncture of chickenwire and orange plastic showfence, a wire is rarely grounded and inspection easy.

A weak point is the gate-entry to the garden. With the orange plastic attached to it, deer won't bother it, nor will raccoon if it carries a high-voltage scare-wire. The only really vulnerable part is where the bottom of the gate clears the ground---and the vulnerability is basically to rabbits. Reduce it by any kind of a bar, such as a board you can hinge or lift.

Before the good people of Zanoni built that huge Rat-Heaver which launched Gene on a real-estate career in Phoenix, he had a double-fence four-foot "moat" surrounding his garden at Heartwood., and two canine slaves named Dax and Benny roaming inside. Deer don't like to jump a double fence or get in a dog-duel. In addition to Dax and Benny, chickens roamed inside the double fence, scarfing up any bug that dared try to cross the moat.





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