How to Build a Small Fence for a Vegetable Garden

Protect your garden with a small picket fence.

When you finally decide to grow your own vegetables, plan on putting up a fence to keep out the curious neighborhood animals that create problems in growing your vegetables as they root around and check out your garden. Of course, you don't want -- or need -- to build an 8-foot fence with barbed wire on the top, as you can effectively protect your garden with a small fencing option.

Things You'll Need

• Tape measure
• Hammer
• Galvanized nails
• 2-by-2 boards
• Construction pickets
• Saw (hand or power)

Instructions

Preparation

1. Determine how much fencing you need, factoring in room for an entrance. If you have a simple rectangular plot, it will be easy to add up the four sides. If the shape is more complicated, just measure up each straight section until you are back where you started.

2. Purchase enough 2-by-2 boards to triple the length of your fence (think top and bottom rail and fence posts). For example, if your garden is a 10-by-15-foot rectangle, then the perimeter would be 50 feet, so you would need 150 feet of 2-by-2s. Since they are normally sold in 8-foot sections, you will need to get 19 boards (which would total 160 feet). It never hurts to get extras.

3. Decide on what pickets to use. They come in 1-by-2s or 1-by-3s in lengths of 2, 3 or 4 feet. Pick the size you want and grab several bundles (you can always return extra).

4. Grab a couple of boxes of 6d galvanized nails and one box of 12d galvanized nails (8d or 16d will work as well). Of course, if you need a hammer or saw this would be the time and place to pick them up.

Construction

1. Nail your stakes (using the 6d nails) on top of the 2-by-2-inch boards to build your fencing sections. After nailing the first picket, lay two more next to it. Nail in the second board, then remove the middle (first) board as it is serving as a spacer. Continue in this fashion, laying down a spacer board and then nailing in the adjacent board until you have spanned the entire fence.

2. Cut the remaining 2-by-2-inch boards in half at a 45-degree angle so you can hammer them into the ground and use them as fence posts. Set a post about every 4 feet depending on your shape.

3. Nail your fencing panels to the posts, using your bigger 8d, 12d or 16d nails.

Tips & Warnings

• Some stores will carry 2x2 "studs" which are 92 1/4 long which is about 4 inches shorter than 8 feet so make sure you get enough.

• Some stores will carry 2-by-2 studs, which measure 92 1/4 inches long, which is about 4 inches shorter than 8 feet, so make sure you get enough.

References

• Vegetable Gardening Online.com: Garden Fence Plans, Vegetable Garden Fence Ideas, Fencing Your Garden