Last week I posted about the start of a new building project: a berry cage in the veggie garden.

This past weekend I continued work on it, starting with a bit of prep stuff: taking the table saw, circular saw, air compressor, nailer, and various other tools to the hoop house and veggie garden, and re-stacking the delivered lumber to access the bits I need first.

8′ and 10′ 2×4 pressure-treated boards:

10′ treated posts, and welded wire fencing:

Next, I took the new untreated lumber to the veggie garden, and built a new garden bed in what will be inside the berry cage. I decided it’d be easier to do this before the enclosure is built, rather than after. In progress:

This bed is the same size as the others, 10×4′, though is on a slope, so has extra lumber shaped to the contour of the ground, to make it level:

Thusly:

The veggie garden is fenced, and had only one entrance, which was fine, but a little inconvenient at times. Especially now that there’s a greenhouse behind the garden. As part of the decision to place it there, I planned to add a back door to the veggie garden, to make it easier to get to the greenhouse.

So I started adding the new doorway; removing the fencing wire, and adding a new pole:

I then cut the fence boards to make the doorway (3.5′ wide):

The opposite view, showing how convenient it’ll be for the greenhouse:

One issue was that there was a tap in the doorway, so I also moved that (I do enjoy the garden plumbing!):

The new tap position:

Hole filled (a little mounded at present, but it’ll settle flat):

I also placed some boards on the ground to help visualize where the roof beams will go. You can see two short vertical posts marking where the poles will go, boards standing on their edges that will be attached to the posts, and boards lying flat between those, that’ll be spaced for the roofing wire. Basically the same design as in the chicken run.

I do need to move some of the holes a little for optimal placement. I had measured the holes based on centering them between the beds, but this arrangement will work better, having the poles in the center of the cage next to a bed instead of in the middle of the walkway:

Finally, I temporarily closed the back doorway with a spare gate panel; I will build a proper gate later (in the same style as the chicken run gates):

Next up, I will tweak the holes, and start installing the poles and beams.

Yesterday I started work on a new construction project that I planned a month or two ago: a berry cage in the vegetable garden.

We have a large fenced veggie garden, with multiple raised beds. Some of the beds include blueberries, strawberries, etc, which are targets for birds. Plus we let our chickens into the veggie garden after we’re done with it in fall/winter, so they can clear out the foliage and weeds. But we don’t want them grazing the berries to the ground.

So, I’m building an enclosure: a fence to split the back four beds of the veggie garden from the rest, a wire roof to keep out birds, and gates. This kind of enclosure is commonly called a berry cage.

I started work on this project by measuring the positions for the poles, cutting the fabric on the ground, and hand-digging out the top gravel layer:

I then used my earth auger to dig the holes, about 2′ deep:

Thusly:

I also dug to expose the pipe for this tap at the back of the garden, as it will be moved. I’m going to put a new gate there, to make it easier to get from the veggie garden to the new greenhouse:

Here’s a view of the back part of the garden. The holes in the foreground will be where the front gate of the berry cage will be:

This morning, I received the delivery from Home Depot of the materials:

Several rolls of welded wire fencing, a heap of 8′ and 10′ posts and boards, and gate hardwire:

A closer look at the lumber. The big untreated boards are for a new garden bed in the berry cage:

Stay tuned for construction progress. Next weekend I’ll re-stack this lumber (I need the posts at the bottom first!), cut the back gate, and start installing the posts and beams.

Should be fun.