We built raised beds from shipping pallets to grow vegetables inside a fence. It's proven about 80% effective; animals graze on anything they can reach from outside the fence, and a few have managed to get inside. One notable intruder: a mature, rather rotund groundhog that Bill saw climb the five-foot fence one day.
Some critters worked their way between the fence and the top of the beds, so we installed new boards this year to better seal things off. The result? We have cucumbers, squash, beans, pumpkin and watermelon thriving at this point (knock on wood), without all the nibbles we saw on those plants last year.
I don't think that it's any coincidence that we have so many vegetables setting fruit this year, as our pollinator garden fills in and surrounds one of the fenced gardens. The bee balm gets buzzed, as advertised. Butterflies flock to the swamp milkweed. Still to bloom: black-eyed Susans, partridge pea, goldenrod, cardinal flower, aster, coreopsis.
The vegetable garden "complex" is just part of the living space we inhabit outside the four walls of our tiny house. Our screen house, deck, fire pit patio, gardens—they're all part of what makes living here not so tiny at all.
Please click on the pictures below for more details.