After having kids, one of the frustrations of our house was the lack of a fence around our backyard. Our now-three year old lacks any sort of self-awareness or sense of danger around roads, and we are lucky enough to be on a corner with two of them running the length of our property, plus a public bike trail in the back. Last March we finally had a fence installed around the back and west side, which meant I could finally expand the vegetable garden without having to watch the oldest every second. The fence was built with edible landscaping in mind (as much as can be done in our shady backyard), with an arbor, trellis, and decorative side to let light in on the west veggie-bed side. It is made of untreated FSC certified cedar, with black locust posts made from a locally felled tree.
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| Old shady backyard. Bike trail is behind the trees to the left. |
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| New, slightly less shady backyard. Trees from the bike trail still cover a significant part of the back, but now we have exposure from the west. |
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| Old side yard with arbor. The arbor was cute but the only thing beyond here was some overgrown bushes and a couple of small raised beds. Access to this side was also blocked from the back. |
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| New side yard, with new sloping beds dug out of the bark mulch. |
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| New arbor, from the inside. I may plant some sort of climbing edible among the roses to get on top of the arbor. |
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| Side fence pattern lets light into the vegetable garden |
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| Street side of the fence, with young blueberries and currants planted on the slope down to the road |
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| Built-in trellis, with baby grapes and raspberries. Previously this was a strip of lawn |
Could you send me a blueprint for your fence?
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