This is not a recipe post, but it is related to food, as I am sure you surmised by the title. And it may not be going up at the best time of year for most of you around the country. But you can always refer back to it later for when you want to make an Herb Garden to Keep Squirrels Out. Or pin it now. Make it later. (I see that on so many pins. And people do it.)

You see, I have always wanted a garden. I love having fresh fruits and vegetables available right outside my door.

And freshly picked produce? There just isn’t anything better.

Well, relatively.

So I tried growing some kale, chard, broccoli and lettuce. But I realized after months of… NOTHING! that my seeds were too old. So, I will be trying that again with starters. Lots of those available at farmers’ markets, here.

But in the meantime, I kept thinking how I would love to also have fresh herbs available when I wanted to cook with them.

I don’t know how many times I have been cooking and said to myself… I said, “Self. Wouldn’t it be great to have some fresh cilantro in this?”

“Self. I think fresh basil would just make this dish.”

<sad face> “Oh, but self. I don’t have any because I don’t have a fabulous herb garden right outside my door. And getting myself together, the boys together and out the door to go to the store for some basil will take forever.” </sad face>

And, yes, these conversations DO go on in my head.

So after many years of this and finally owning our home, I said to myself, “Self. Let’s plant an herb garden and always have those fresh herbs available whenever we I want.”

“Oh, but self, we have tons of pesky squirrels and birds that like to get into and eat any and everything.”

“Rats! Self. You are so right. Is there anything we I can do?”

“Well, self, maybe there is. Remember how FIL showed us me how to put up the wire around the apple tree so the deer would stop eating the leaves? Can’t we I do that for a larger area?”

“OK, let us me try.”

So below is what we I did. I took pictures step by step and then made 2 long “pin-able” images at the bottom for a refresher. It was just too long as one looooooooooong image. In our my opinion.

Step 1 – Pick out your planting area (or get some galvanized buckets at Home Depot and poke holes in the bottom) to know how much chicken wire you will need. Then get some chicken wire (image 1), wire cutters (image 1) and stakes (image 2). All of these things are at home improvement stores. I found the chicken wire and stakes in the back of the lumber area. You know, like you are going to make a chicken coop.

Step 2 – Put your stakes in the ground around your area and wrap the chicken wire around it. Hook the wire onto the little hooks that go all the way down the stakes to hold it in place. (You can see close ups of the hooks in images 4 and 5.)

Step 3 – Wrap more chicken wire around the front. Basically you want to keep wrapping it around until your area is covered. Then you are going to secure one end of the chicken wire to the other end using the long string of wire that comes with it. There should be a long string of wire wrapped around your roll of chicken wire to hold it together. Use your wire cutters to cut 6 – 9 inches pieces for securing. (Securing example in image 9.)

Step 4 – Hook the end of your wire at a stake. You are going to want the end accessible like this because this is how you are going to get in and out to gather your fresh herbs.

Step 5 – Take another swath of chicken wire and lay it over the top. Fold over the sides so it overlaps the sides of your herb coop. Those little buggers squirrels will go over the top if they have to.

Step 6 – It the front, you want to cut the top of your herb coop wire at the corner with your wire cutters. The reason for doing this is because you want the front of your herb coop wire open-able. So the top wire goes down first and the front wire opens and closes over it. (See image 8.)

Step 7 – Use more of you cut wire strings to wrap through the top chicken wire and side chicken wire to secure any big gaps. You just want to make sure no squirrel can get through a gap easily.