Keeping Dogs Out of Your Raised Beds
It’s bad enough when squirrels and neighborhood cats get into your freshly planted garden beds and dig everything up. But when it’s your own dogs? Now that’s a big OOF.
I’ve got two big dogs, one a lab/springer spaniel mix (a springador) and a Great Pyrenees mix. We’ve had our lab mix Tucker since puppyhood, so his consistent training has made him a great garden dog. He knows his boundaries don’t include inside the garden beds! But our new guy, Moses, loves stepping right up into the beds to have a sniff. Oh, buddy…
Something that you can do if you have a similar situation is to build a very simple, DIY raised bed extension – for about $10!
This article is for those of you who prefer to have written word instructions to follow along with. For those of you who are visual learners, check out the accompanying YouTube video below! Keep reading on, my fellow readers!
Materials Needed
8 foot section of rebar mesh paneling
Zip ties
Bolt cutters
… that’s it!
You can buy one panel of the rebar mesh for just under $10 at your local hardware or big box store. You can find them near the concrete supplies, usually within the lumber section.
If you need to purchase zip ties specifically for this project, or any other outdoor project, I suggest buying the black ones like these, rather than these white ones. While the white ones are cheaper, they won’t stand up to the elements and fluctuating temperatures outside as well as the black ones.
How I Do It
This is a really simple project. It’s something you can do by yourself in one afternoon, easily!
You’ll want to decide how tall you want your rebar panel to be on the side of your raised beds before cutting. I decided to go with one square and a half height on my beds. Paired alongside with consistent training, it should be a sufficient height to deter my dogs from climbing in.
I really like using this rebar mesh paneling in my garden for this project as well as for arched trellises, as it is a very flexible material. Two downsides to it though are that 1) you have to cut it with bolt cutters. Not the worst, but bolt cutters are not something I have on hand. I don’t do a lot of breaking and entering in my spare time! But thankfully, we knew someone who owned some so we borrowed them for this job.
2) the cut edges can be pretty sharp. I’ll likely follow this project up with a quick filing, so we don’t catch ourselves on the edges.
Go ahead and measure your rebar out and start snipping it to size – our beds are 6×2 feet, so for each bed I needed two 6 foot and two 2 foot sections.
You could make it simpler on yourself and cut whole sections instead of doing one and a half like I did, but I have my reasons. I wanted to use the resulting spikes to press down into the soil to provide extra stabilization while attaching them to the beds.
Once you have your pieces cut, start with one panel and line it up end to end on the bed. We left some tall support stakes in our beds for this reason: to be able to attach the rebar. I like to start with the middle stake when attaching the rebar to the bed. It makes it a little easier to hold onto when you’re doing this project by yourself.
Grab those black zip ties and start attaching them to the beds! Start with the middle if you have stakes like me, or start with combining two ends of the rebar together to make a right angle: one for the long side of your bed and one for the short.
You get the idea.
I used two zip ties per point of connection for extra stability. If you don’t have stakes in your bed to attach the rebar to, you should have no problem putting it all together and just placing it on top of your bed. Push it down in the soil on the edge a bit and you should be good to go.
Remember: this isn’t a quick miracle fix if you have a dog who is adamant on getting in your raised beds. This is just a way for you to arrange your environment in order to set them up for success. Plenty of positive reinforcement training is the real key to having dog-free raised beds!
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