A New Entry Gate for My Garden

This weekend I installed a new set of entry gates for my garden.  It’s kind of old because I built the swinging gates about two years ago, & they now have that old wood silver-grey patina that I love.

But it’s also new because I never got around to installing the gates until now.  Yeah, I know 2 years is a long time, but you just can’t rush engineering genius.  Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know.

I was afraid digging the holes for the posts was going to be tough, and I expected many rocks and roots to be in the way.  Surprisingly it was just packed soil and soft sand which made for easy digging, and I ended up with two holes about 18” in diameter and 24” deep.

I attached each gate to a 4”x4”x8ft cedar post with three hinges, lined everything up on the ground and clamped both gates together as a single unit.  Then it was a matter of doing a weightlifting “clean and jerk” move (it was heavy!) to lift the assembly up while dropping the posts into the holes in the ground.  Not bad for accomplishing a 2 man job with one person.

After shimming up once side of the gate until it was level, I started filling the holes with soil a little at a time, and compacting the soil around the posts in the holes with a sledgehammer.  Everything is not perfectly square, but it’s close enough for country living.  The important thing is it will keep out the big critters like deer from jumping over the top, while keeping the little critters like rabbits and groundhogs from crawling underneath.

And that means more vegetables for me . . .

Labels: Home and Garden