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Re: Maybe OT? protecting raised beds

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

On 08:10 AM 7/8/99 -0400, Frank Teuton wrote:

>Apparently children have crawled under low fencing, of the kind needed to be
>in the dog urine circuit, and gotten caught underneath, and repeatedly
>shocked.  The Premier Fence people offer very good quality electric fencing
>supplies and extremely professional advice, and I doubt they would say such
>a thing if it weren't factual.

Sure they would.  It's called "cover your butt".  Haven't you seen labels
on hair dryers saying "don't use in the bath or shower"?  By warning you
about some theoretically possible potential harm, they are off the hook if
that harm happens because they can claim you ignored their warning.  But
most of the time all you need to do is apply plain ol' common sense.

If the bottom strand is low enough, the child will NOT be able to get
*under* the fence before getting shocked, and thus will be able to move
away from the fence between the shocks.  So (duh) if this is a concern, the
bottom strand should be very close to the ground.  If the strand is higher,
the child *should* be able to just shrink away from the wire, but I can see
how a child would then get "stuck" and unable to move because every move
brings the child back up against the wire.  Of course, any child that age
shouldn't be in the area unsupervised, right?  Basic common sense solves
the problem.

In most gardens we have buckets that occasionally have water in them,
especially in square foot gardens when we use the "cup of water" watering
technique.  A bucket with just a few inches of water in it can drown a
toddler, and many buckets today have warning labels on them indicating as
much.  This is of far more concern to the average gardener.  And this
doesn't even begin to cover all the issues with the additives we put in our
soil and on our plants that can be toxic to a child.  If you have children
(in your home or in the neighborhood), especially toddlers, you have MANY
things to consider.

On 07:27 AM 7/8/99 -0500, Martha Wells wrote:
>Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html
>
>Different fencing, different wire gauge, and volts, etc, deliver different 
>charges with wildly different results. I have used ele fence in the past in 
>a foolish attempt to keep deer and my goats out of a corn field. The only 
>thing it kept out was ME. We've used ele fence, one low strand posted 6" 
>inside of a hog fence to keep baby pigs inside. This wasn't a high load 
>system, but it still killed a cat when she touched both fences, ele and 
>wire fence, at the same time. It WOULD have killed another one. She turned 
>to bite at it and it 'froze' her to the fence in several places. Had to get 
>a broom handle to pry her off of it. I turned it off, packed the unit up 
>and won't use them anymore. I can see where a child, crawling in the damp 
>grass underneath an electric fence could be killed by it.

IMHO that is an improperly installed fence.  The electric charge should
never be enough to kill any animal or person.  It is simply not necessary
to have that much charge in a properly set up electric fence for it to do
the job of deterring the animals it is to deter.  Your problem with the
corn field fence was that the fence wasn't properly designed (placement and
height of the wires) rather than the shock of the electricity itself.

I've been using electric fencing for over 20 years, and I haven't had a
single animal killed by my fencing.  The only animal caution I've seen in
all this time was when they changed from using red insulators to yellow
insulators because apparently the red ones attracted humming birds and if
they touched the hot wire and the supporting post (grounded of course) at
the same time while trying to "feed" on this strange red "flower" they
would receive enough of a shock to kill their tiny bodies.  I've never
heard of a dead cat, and I've put up fencing in areas with many cats, and
seen fencing in areas with many cats.  I think your fencing unit was not
the sort that should be used outside of VERY confined circumstances.  It is
also possible that your unit was an older model (when this technology was
new) and newer units simply don't put out that much shock anymore.

On 12:18 PM 7/8/99 -0500, Ian Stoba & Laurie Mandigo-Stoba wrote:
>Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html
>
>You could put a sprinkler in or near your garden, and turn it on just as
>the dogs arrive, or nab them directly with a hose blast. And with the hose
>in mind, shouldn't a thorough watering help to lessen the urine burn for
>the plants?  One that I've heard of, but not tried is sprinkling or
>spraying hot pepper extract on the area around the boards.  They nearly
>always sniff before they mark, and this should be unpleasant for them.  A
>"please curb your dog" sign, or the old pooping dog inside a universal ban
>sign might do the trick too:)  Good luck moving the doggies along.

That sorta assumes that these are supervised dogs, and based on the initial
post I was imagining that her problem was with unsupervised dogs.

If you want to try the water trick, setup a sprinkler with a motion
detector (covering the area *between* the street/sidewalk and your garden,
as well as covering the garden) that can turn the sprinkler on.  As the
dogs move towards your garden, they trigger the motion detector, the
sprinkler comes on, the dogs get surprised by the sudden water and leave.
After a few weeks every loose dog in your neighborhood will just steer
clear of your garden.

jc


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