I'd still go with the 2" - it's much easy to work with, and it reasonably load bearing. Perhaps a different way to approach is to make pieces of PS foam that fit together and then use greenhouse film to pull the whole thing tight - avoiding the metal work entirely.

Hi Lispeth- Congratulations on your new house! Here are my thoughts on your questions: 1. How long after I dig them up and then transplant to the temporary bed(s) do I have to wait before digging up again and moving to their permanent beds? Can I do that this fall? I always thought you needed to wait at least a year. If you can wait a year, I would wait a year. The plants will already be going through transplant trauma with the first dig - let them get settled a bit and regrow roots. Unless you are talking about a very short period of time where the first bed is simply a "holding spot" (1 week or so) before you're moving it over. 2. Can I just make a frame/box from some wood boards (we have loads of scrap wood) and line it with landscape fabric then dump some dirt/compost mixture in and plant in that? You can. Instead of landscape fabric, you could also just use old newspaper. 3.My old rule of thumb for transplanting was my Grandmother's-as long as the plant is not in bud or bloom you can move it. If it's more than 6" tall, cut it back so that it's energy can go to the roots to get established. Also, it's better to do it on a cloudy/cool day or in the early morning/evening than afternoon. Is this still accepted? that's how I do it. Good luck! Rini Thanks again for the great advice!

Certainly not a landscaping question, but 8 ft is plenty high for a fence to keep deer out of a garden, and it most certainly won't limit light for the plants. My deer fence has locust posts and uses heavy duty black plastic netting (nearly invisible), 8 feet high. The netting should last at least 15 years. At the base is a stiff low fence of galvanized wire up against the netting. Two doors--great fence.

I live in a quite rural area and don't find deer to be a problem in my garden; in more than 30 years on 3 different sites in my town, I've only had a small bit of nibbling on peas once, and I've never fenced the garden. I think there is so much other food available during the growing season that they would just as soon avoid us. My problem animals are woodchucks AKA groundhogs which do a lot of destruction in a very short amount of time with legumes and cole crops being their favorites, and voles, which are an ongoing problem, munching on underground crops like potatoes, carrots, and sweet potatoes. Both will tunnel under fences unless the fences are buried. We have deer around - I often see them or evidence of their presence, but they tend to not come into the veggie beds, even when they are nearby. I've honestly had more problems with loose cows than deer . . . A few questions, and please forgive me if you've already thought these through. Do you know that deer will be a problem? Sometimes if the deer pressure isn't high, a bit of aversion therapy is enough. For instance, I kept deer out of my in-laws' hollies last winter with a combination of 80 lb. fishing line strung around various things a number of feet away from the bushes in a random web up to about 5 1/2' high in combination with Irish Spring soap in bags hung on the bushes. I don't know if it was the near invisibility of the transparent fishing line or the odor of the soap that made them unappealing, but they were untouched for the first time in several years. How will you hold the fence up? Are you thinking the construction fence with feet? How expensive will that be - cheap enough to make the investment in fence or its rental worth the veggies? Even regular fence panels that need poles buried for support on Craig's List don't seem inexpensive, and gates aren't cheap either. Rocks alone won't hold up fence panels without feet. I wouldn't worry about the height since you can extend that with poles fastened to the chain link supports and light weight netting or a couple of strands of wire. Do you have trees on the property? Would it be cheaper to use a combination of 3-4 strands of electric wire on trees around a larger perimeter than the fence panels? There are some good ideas on the veggie garden forum: here's a search with deer as the search term.