[Annie714]

Annie and her partner in crime, Jack Russell called Zoey, just love to get into the garden and pick tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, basically anything they can get their mouths on. Sometimes they will eat a zucchini right off the vine. Tomatoes are another story, if they are small enough I generally will find an undigested tomato when I clean up poop. But then Annie does something else with the bigger ones: she carries them to the cover of our spa, drops it and then does a death roll on it! What is that?? She ends up covered in tomato seeds!

Anyone else grow veggies? How do you keep your furry friends from getting into the garden and picking your goodies? We have a wire fence around the garden but the dogs run a tag team...the little one goes in and picks the veggies and Annie waits til Zoey brings one out. I'm getting ready to start my seeds but need to figure out to protect my goodies better this year.

 

[Kirska]

I'm thinking when we start a garden I'm going to build a small (3 ft or so) picket type fence to keep them out.

 

[gsally]

No good advice from me. My decorative 18" partician didn't keep Lucy out of the herb garden I tried to plant every single summer by the back door. Parsley, basil, and her very favorite chamomile, she'd eat them all! After the 3rd year, I gave up!

 

[mhvonalmen8908]

If you figure this out let us know please! I want to start a garden eventually but it's looking like my best bet would be to plant it on the side of the house where it gets constant sun but no dogs could get into it.

 

[Annie714]

LOL...I'll have to get some pictures posted when I decide a better approach. The wire "fence" has openings wide enough for the JRT to get thru. I'm trying to make it usable...without making it visually hideous.

My only "dog free" plants are in pots in the front courtyard, but I need ground soil for the carrots and pumpkins I want to grow this year. We'll see...

 

[Danish]

By the end of summer, we were on our 4th fence to keep Squishy out of the garden. Once she figured out how to put her own body weight to use, she would just charge and lean on the fence until it collapsed under her.

Can't wait until this summer to see how many we'll go through

 

[roscolaylamommy]

We had a small raised garden last year with a 2 foot fence around it (we used chicken wire) and that seems to keep my dogs out of it for the most part. Instead of getting into the garden they wore the grass away around it chasing each other in what we call the Basset 500.

My mom had a basset mix that would go into her garden every year and help himself to the cucumbers. There were many times he was busted eating a cucumber on the front steps.

 

[vb3]

Yeah, the video below (also posted in another thread) shows the garden. You can buy a 36" roll of chicken wire that's pretty inexpensive.

 

[Mikey T]

it's looking like my best bet would be to plant it on the side of the house where it gets constant sun but no dogs could get into it.

thats what works for me

 

[Annie714]

That video is great! I love the random time-outs they take for sniffing LOL

 

[vb3]

One thing to consider with the chicken wire is that it's pretty much a permanent placement, you can't reroll that stuff and reuse it. Plus roots tend to grow through it so pulling it out takes a lot of work. But it works really well to keep out hounds and other critters, squirrels being the exception.

 

[2hounds]

When my parents used to have a garden they used the chicken wire also. Here at our house we once found Lily in our pepper garden whining bc though she jumped in she decided that she couldn't get out. She then had bad stomach problems for a few days. Grr. I think the dogs enjoy the veggies as much as we do, we've just learned to share.