It’s time for Spring DIY projects everywhere and here on the Farm is no exception! As I wrote previously we are putting in a berry garden this year. The ground was rototilled and it would soon be time to plant the berries but living in rural Montana we can’t just plant things and hope for the best. Since there are deer roaming about anything we plant needs to be fenced. The main garden has a 9 foot fence around it; fortunately the berry garden wouldn’t need a fence that high! We discussed it and we figured 5 feet high would be fine so the hubby made his shopping list for building a gate and off we went to The Home Depot in Missoula.
Arriving at the Store
We weren’t sure to go for fence so we stopped and asked a very friendly young lady at the Customer Service Desk. Jaimie was very nice and she told us where to go – IN A NICE WAY! She answered all of our questions and she had that beautiful smile.
We quickly found the fence, fence poles and wood needed for the project.
Hubby loaded it onto a readily available cart. At this point we had everything but the gate hardware. As we were looking for where to find it we were approached by a helpful Home Depot employee.
We were quickly directed to where we needed to go to get the gate latch and hinges. We picked them out and headed for the checkout counters.
Shopping List for Building a Gate and Putting Up a Fence:
To put up the fence and build the gate we bought:
5 ft fencing Steel Welded Wire (100ft)
7 ft metal posts (6)
Pine 1x4x8 (6)
Western Red Cedar 4x4x8 (2)
Pine 2x2x8 (6)
Galvanized Steel T-Post Clips (2 Pkgs)
4″ Heavy Duty Hinge Zinc (2)
Gate Latch Sag Compensation Black (1)
Zinc 1″ Wood Screws (10)
This will ensure that deer stay away from the berry garden. We will wait and see if the few rabbits we have get through the fence. If they do we will just add some chicken wire around the bottom.
The hubby offers a tip for those of you that have burrowing garden pests – he says to dig a trench around the garden and bury a bit of the fence underground, turning it so that it lays flat and horizontal to the outside. It should come out 6″ to 1′ underground so that when the critter digs it gets fence in front and below.
Time to Leave
We were checked out quickly and efficiently. He offered to have someone help us out to the truck but we declined. Our experience at The Home Depot was great; we found what we needed and everyone was very helpful. There is a culture of customer service there that is lacking in many other stores. I did check out the fruit trees on the way out.
You can see how to install the fencing and building a gate. After he finished all of that it was time for planting the blackberries. Since they have been in they have given us a generous harvest on opposite years with a modest harvest on the other years. But we do get a solid quantity of berries no matter what. We have since added a secondary strawberry garden and raspberries.
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