Simple Garden Gate

This little garden gate came together easily. It's made of one panel of light-weight fencing I bought at Home Depot for $13. 

The panels are designed to connect together to make a fence and they have little hooks on one side that I used to make the hinges. 

I used two 4 ft garden stakes, two eye bolts with nuts and washers. 

The garden stakes already have holes, but I needed to drill the second hole because the hooks did not line up with the pre-drilled holes.

Bottom hole I drilled.

Attach the eye bolts to the stakes.

Pound the stakes into the ground and the gate hooks easily slip into the eye hooks making simple hinges. To keep the gate closed, I attached a zip tie to the gate which slips over the second pole.

Because the fence panel is light-weight and small, it seems to work well. This panel is about 32 inches high and 23 inches wide.  I ended up adding a wooden dowel across the bottom because the gap was too big to keep the dogs out. You can see it going horizontally across the bottom. It is spray painted black and held on by wire. 

My fences are made of rabbit fencing, and they are designed to be easily removed to allow access to the garden beds from all sides. You can read about how I made them here. When I put up the fence, I made several small gates out of the rabbit fencing and they have worked very well, but they are a bit of a hassle to close and they are starting to lose their shape. Here is the gate today before it was replaced.

Before

After

This fence is not sturdy enough to keep out a determined dog, but it is enough to keep my sweet Bessie May out of the garden. She is a well-behaved dog and this little gate will keep her out.

Bless her heart, she waits outside the gate until she is invited in. I didn't train her to do that, she is just intuitive that way. She walks on the paths, and only eats things that are offered by me. Oh, how she loves her carrots, peas and strawberries!

One little gate finished, two to go.