Fencing Our "Yard"...

My family, the B.C.T. Artist Collective
(four people, three last names, all weird) is buying land.
A lot that formally had a house on it, for sale cheap. Lead? Almost certainly.

But we don't care. We already have a house we are paying on, we want a canvas we will own outright.

So, the parcel will qualify as a "community garden", though we do NOT have to share. To avoid unwanted attention to our endeavors we have decided a seemly privacy fence or wall should be the first thing we build.

We could buy fencing panels out right, but I would love to save money, and I love making things.

So, any thoughts on diy privacy fence that will not draw unwanted attention?

I am a scrounger with a van, in fact storing and concealing my finds is one purpose of "The Yard", so ideas involving waste streams are ideal, buuut, the final product has to be presentable.

One last detail. I am a plumber, electrician, baker, and candle stick maker, but a veery rough carpenter.
I can measure, drill, cut and drive a screw, but that's about it. I even avoid nails, for me hammers are tools of destruction!

Any ideas for this crazed maker?

William Bronson wrote: My family, the B.C.T. Artist Collective
(four people, three last names, all weird) is buying land.
A lot that formally had a house on it, for sale cheap. Lead? Almost certainly.

But we don't care. We already have a house we are paying on, we want a canvas we will own outright.

So, the parcel will qualify as a "community garden", though we do NOT have to share. To avoid unwanted attention to our endeavors we have decided a seemly privacy fence or wall should be the first thing we build.

We could buy fencing panels out right, but I would love to save money, and I love making things.

So, any thoughts on diy privacy fence that will not draw unwanted attention?

I am a scrounger with a van, in fact storing and concealing my finds is one purpose of "The Yard", so ideas involving waste streams are ideal, buuut, the final product has to be presentable.

One last detail. I am a plumber, electrician, baker, and candle stick maker, but a veery rough carpenter.
I can measure, drill, cut and drive a screw, but that's about it. I even avoid nails, for me hammers are tools of destruction!

Any ideas for this crazed maker?

To avoid unwanted attention: Don't put your plan on the internet. Hey, it happens.
Buy your screws by the 50lb box from an actual fastener supplier. Tons of savings.
Pallets are what you need. Oak. Find places that deal with sheet materials. Aluminum, steel, plexiglas etc. That stuff comes on 8-12 foot long x 4-6 foot wide pallets with thicker planks and post worthy beams. You'll have to pre drill or find the right screws to get through the oak planks without splitting. Your van will only hold the 4 foot wide pallets. 4'x8' and 4'x10' Those will make up 98% of what you find. Large sign companies buy the 5 and 6 foot wide quite often. I made a special pry bar for disassembling pallets once. We called it the de-palletizer 2000. Think of a pry bar, 6 foot long, with two forks a few inches apart. Probably could make one from steel/iron water pipe. Cabinet makers get wood delivered on nice pallets.

Wow, great suggestions!
I had been sceptical of using pallets as most I have encountered are soft crappy wood. Clearly I need to look in higher class locations!

William Bronson wrote: Lead? Almost certainly.

Former industrial area, was it? There are things you can plant that will take care of the lead problem. This reference talks about planting mustard to reduce soil lead levels. There are other beneficial effects of planting mustard -- it kills off Fusarium spores that cause all sorts of plant diseases. There is a debate on that in the scientific literature, some saying that they didn't see any reduction, and others saying they did. I put myself in the latter category based on my own experience. I planted the whole garden with mustard in the fall after my disastrous first summer here, and tilled it under the following spring. It did the trick, and that was the last time the garden was tilled. But in your case, if you want to remove the lead, you are going to have to harvest it in the fall and have it carted off to the landfill.

Well, it wasn't an industrial site persay, but it did have house on it, andhousing stock in this area tends to have lead paint.
My own house is around the corner, 91 years old, and still has lead dust coming from the window wells.
We were thinking gourds, and luffa to remove bad crap, plus lead apparently concentrates in foilage rather than fruits, so no salad greens for eating anyway.
I am not really worried, as I will be building soil with outside inputs anyway, and frankly anything I grow will likely be better than the conventional crops my familly largely subsist on .

Just before reading this thread I came across this picture.

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/7a/ca/de/7acadefb8076c674432e84904227d833.jpg


It doesn't create a complete screen and is a little low for privacy but you do add to your growing space.

That is beautiful! I will probably put something similar inside the fence. My wife found 8' x 3-4" cedar planks , a dollar each, so that will be our "face" to the world. Inside of that, craziness ensues!

Something I'm intrigued by is the living willow fence, like:

or

source: http://www.inspirationgreen.com/living-willow-hedges.html
Bearing in mind they are deciduous, so for true privacy they would have to be planted very closely.

Galadriel Freden wrote:Something I'm intrigued by is the living willow fence, like:

or

source: http://www.inspirationgreen.com/living-willow-hedges.html
Bearing in mind they are deciduous, so for true privacy they would have to be planted very closely.

That is beautiful, and probably dirt cheep since you can use cutting from a friend or neighbor. You could also use it as a trellis for raspberries, for extra garden produce and to discourage people from trying to climb it.

I like , but I have a lot only 35 feet across, and willows are notorious for their invasive roots- maybe in a lined trench?
I will be adding raspberries, they are two damned easy to grow!

The fencing is coming along, despite the crazy amounts of stone in the lot. Too cold to pour concrete, so I today I cleared English Ivy from the chain link of the back fence line, and felled a honeysuckle "tree", from the southern fence line. I think I will replace the sagging chain link with a pallet fence that may morph into a vertical bed or a slip-form wall or something else.
The back (east) edge of the lot has a concrete wall about two feet high with a 4 foot fence running along the top. I could see making a trough to grow bamboo or willow or a green green wall to grow veg. Vines come to mind.
No matter what the English Ivy that grows up from the strip between the wall an the neighbors ramshackle privacy fence needs to die. Non-native, non-flowering, non-edible,non-welcome at the yard.
It also strangles other plants. Bad show all around.
Time to research how to get rid of it.