Building a fence around the garden and orchard

Deer and elk are year-round visitors, especially to anything green that they consider tasty. This includes leaves of grape vines, flowers and vegetables. So when we began our gardening we brought over the chain-link panels from where we had the travel trailer. This wasn't long enough to enclose the garden so we extended it with panels from an available dog pen.

While this extended fence was adequate at the time, we planned to add fruit trees nearby, and we know how much elk liked tree fruit.

We got bids from fencing contractors about a permanent deer fence and found we couldn't manage the expense. So we bought more chain-link panels and piece by piece, week by week we extended around the future orchard.

To allow access to a riding lawn mower or our tractor we bought a deer gate (7 feet tall), erectd a strong post and installed it.

Our design included a metal post mounted in concrete between every pair of panels, to keep them in line, and protect them from the strong winds we have. We imagine that we can string an obvious tape from one tall post to the next and make the height appear "too tall" for would-be poachers.