A few years ago Samuel Sheep and I built a leaf pen in the far corner of our yard. By now we have a thick pad of composted material which we need to harvest. However, because leaves take at least two years to completely breakdown, the material we want is hidden below a layer of partially decomposed leaves. What would be ideal is if we had two leaf pens which could be filled (and harvested) on alternate years. It's also worth noting that the existing pen is a bit...well...crap. I think you can imagine where this is going...
I started off by picking up some eight foot lengths of 2" x 4" pressure treated lumber and 1" x 2" redwood trim.
Drilled pocket holes in the timber (both sides):
Fortunately I had a few redwood 4" x 4" posts left over from the fence we built in out front yard a couple of years ago...I probably couldn't afford to buy them now.
Constructed the first pen.
All the joints were made with pocket holes screws which are quick and easy to install and make a very strong connection.
Added the second pen...the original chicken wire pen is just visible to the right of the new ones; the new location is mostly hidden from view when you're inside the house.
The gaps at the base of the pens were filled with some scraps of pressure treated lumber which I had kicking around in the workshop.
The side and and rear panels of the pens will be made from wire deer fencing since we have almost a whole roll of this material left over from the front yard enclosure. The first step of this process is to cut the redwood 2" x 1" trim into four foot pieces. Screw holes were then bored with the drill press.
The trim is installed at the perimeter of each panel, and set back 7/8" from the rear edge of the frame:
Time to cut up some wire mesh into rectangular sections...
The mesh is secured to the trim with staples:
A second layer of redwood trim is then added to sandwich the mesh and hopefully keep it taught and secure....it worked on the fences at the front yard!
This is the "big picture." The mesh is essentially invisible from ten feet or more away.
There is no mesh at the front facing panels because gates will be going there. The framework for each gate is the same 2" x 4" PT for the vertical sections and I used redwood for the horizontals; the redwood was also left over from the front fence, but I only had short pieces.
Each gate has three (3) panels to fill with wire mesh, so I got to work cutting and drilling more short pieces of 2" x 1" redwood. Almost all of these pieces were salvaged from material I had on hand.
This is later after the trim and mesh has been installed at the first pair of gates:
I used a mixture of shims and clamps to get the gates in the precise position, and then installed the hinges. The gates are quite heavy, so I bought hinges which are rated to 50 lbs.
All four gates installed:
The design was copied from the gates at our front yard:
Time to do something with this area...
The "tree" at the apex of this area is dead, and what appears to be "foliage" is actually a mixture of branches which belong to trees in the neighboring lots.
This is the same area after I removed the old leaf pen and trimmed back some of the encroaching foliage.
This is the same area after the top few inches of partially decomposed leaves were removed and deposited in the first pen. As you can see we have a huge pile of pristine compost which is about a foot deep. We have plans to use this elsewhere in the yard
By this time next year, we'll be millionaires the eaves in the first pen should be similarly decomposed:
Started filling the second pen with leaves that fell this autumn...plenty more where these came from...
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