I am almost finished installing the garden fence; I'm alternating between that and controlling Norway maples and bittersweet these days. The new garden enclosure is almost triple the size of the area inside our old bird netting stretched between cedar posts. Half of the beds in this garden will be the teaching garden for kids' programs at the preserve.
It is true that deer could easily leap this fence, and so this fence will probably have wire above it to raise its effective height.
The old oak beams that served well for raised beds but now are rotting will eventually be replaced with plastic landscape ties.
Why raised beds? Raised beds like these are more often used in urban gardens than country ones—in cities the existing soil is sometimes contaminated with lead from exhaust or construction and raised beds offer an opportunity to substitute an imported topsoil. We don't have that problem here but raised beds offer several other advantages.
Raised beds drain water better than at-grade gardens. With irrigation you can always add water; it is harder to drain it away when there's too much rain. One test for suitable tree planting sites is to dig a hole and fill it with water. If it's still full of water an hour later you don't have a well-drained soil, either due to it being clay or compacted, or both. When I was digging the holes for the fence posts, I stopped with a hole partly dug when it started to rain. Two days after it had stopped raining, this hole still contained water. Raised beds will get the garden up out of that water-holding soil.
It is easier to improve soils in raised beds: like the soil around many houses mine is partly compacted fill from the construction. The raised beds will be topsoil amended with compost.
You never walk in planting beds (at least, you shouldn't). This allows the soil to remain fluffy—better for the roots of growing plants. Raised beds serve as a barrier to the feet of would-be soil compactors.
Raised beds can be planted more intensively, so you can grow more crops in a smaller space. For me this really means there is less room for weeds, and so the garden will take less time to maintain. With the sides of the raised beds being beams or landscape timbers, you can sit on the side and lean in to plant and weed—a benefit of easy access for everyone who gardens here.
