make your own garden box fence

Around here, we love our little back yard.

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We’ve even taken on the whole let’s garden thing, over the years, along with building some simple cedar garden boxes to suit our needs.

An organic garden {even a little one like ours} is a lot of work, but totally worth it.

And last year, we decided to take a break, and plant some flowers in those boxes while heading to the local farmer’s market.

No shame, y’all. No shame.

We’re honestly torn between veggies and having fresh flowers in my home 24/7, and next year, will probably try for both.

The humming birds and sweet butterflies, frogs and praying mantises those zinnias brought alone, were enough to choose flowers…

And even a few unexpected little visitors, as well.

Sorry not sorry – we hardcore animal lovers over here think he’s pretty cute. ;}

Last year, Chloe was a bit of a trouble maker, and at the last minute we decided to break out a chicken wire fence as a temporary solution for our little garden.

There’s something about a garden that just screams “trample me!” to dogs.

And this year, we already have some great sunflower sprouts, but Rigby & Fitz were being trouble makers with the whole lets-eat-all-the-blooms-thing, so we decided to build a little something to deter them: a garden box fence.

Since our home is on the market, we knew we needed a simple, affordable solution for our little garden… we’re a little jealous that we may not be here to enjoy the benefits all summer!

So we made a little fence, and opted for blooms again this year. This time, with some little garden signs.

These little girls have some serious ups (Airbud has nothing on them), but the fence is doing a good job in deterring them from even trying it out. {Even if that dog one house over behind us is pretty tempting to bark at.}

This is super simple to make and all you need is several 1 x 2 x 8 cedar boards. (How many will depend on your fence size, we used 6).

To start, you’ll want to rip all your 1 x 2’s down the middle this will save you a ton of money. A table saw is one of the best investments you can make if you are buying tools. Although you can do this without ripping them down the middle and use the whole piece of wood.

Then you will want to cut pieces to length. We chose to have our stakes at 8 inches in the dirt and sit 22 inches above the dirt. So we cut stakes to 30 inches and used one about every 18 inches.

We also cut an angle on our stakes to help them go int he dirt easier.

You’ll need to cut your cross beams to size, we used two for each fence and then cut our planks to size. We put one every 3.5 inches.

Once you have everything cut, lay out your cross beams and begin placing the stakes down. We wanted our stakes to sit 2 1/2 inches above the cross, and about 18 inches apart. Then we simply placed a dab of wood glue to make them more stable from the backside.

We repeated the same process with the planks, however we made these flush with the top cross beam and situated them with about 3.5 inches between each other. (You may have to fudge a little on the space between everything depending on your fence size. Just get it close and make sure it’s even… this will trick the eye.)

Now simply hammer the stakes in with a mallet.

We made some simple signs from painted pieces of wood and more cedar posts. Not really necessary, but adds a cute little presentation in our little blooming corner.

They are super easy. Just cut another stake and grab a piece of spare wood. Cut your wood to size, paint it. And add your label.

The kiddos helped install it and everything – they love their little garden and can’t wait for those blooms to start popping up!

They can’t wait for the blooms!

As always, let us know if you have any questions or if you try it.

We’d love to hear. Have an inspired day!