We listed our friend Greg Ring on the acknowledgments page of our new gardening book, Mike & Roxie’s Vegetable Paradise.
Greg's fence and Mike in his "good" coveralls
Unfortunately, his contribution to our gardening learning curve — a cool rabbit fence made out of plastic plumping parts — didn’t make the final cut in the editing process. Apparently the editors thought my wooden rabbit fence was plenty.
Whatever the reason, we still think other gardeners might benefit from having the instructions. So here they are in case you have some time on your hands this winter:
PCV pipe rabbit fence
We stole this idea from our friends Greg and Betsy Ring. Greg designed a handsome fence out of plastic plumbing pipe to protect Betsy’s strawberries.
I wouldn’t recommend it for a large space because this fence costs more per foot than wood.
But it is ideal for smaller raised beds, as it’s meant to sit atop landscape ties.
Materials
1 inch lengths of white PVC pipe.
Elbows and t-shaped connectors for 1 inch PVC pipe.
Glue for plastic plumbing.
Galvinized poultry fencing, 2-foot tall, with 1-inch mesh.
Broom handle clamps
Roofing nails or drywall screws.
Tools
Saw of your choice
Hammer
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Building this fence reminded me of playing with tinker toys. Simply measure your raised bed and buy a sufficient supply of pipe and connectors to construct the number of sections required.
Sections should be no taller than the height of the poultry mesh. Figure to have a vertical support for every four linear feet of pipe.
Attach pipe elbows at the corners and use t-shaped connectors for center supports when building sections longer than four feet.
Secure pipe to connectors with plastic pipe glue.
Cut to size and attach poultry mesh with wire to the section frames.
Meanwhile, nail or screw broom handle clamps onto the tops of landscape ties every 3 to 4 feet, at least two per side.
Snap sections into place in the broom clamps. Wire sections to each other.
Posted by: Mike
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