Hi, my name is Charlotte and my work in progress “homestead” is located in Navarre, Florida, in the northwest panhandle, USDA hardiness zone 8b. I live in the suburbs on a half acre lot.
This blog is about my journey to becoming self sufficient, and someone, who even if only in a small way, makes a difference in their community. For my day job I own a lawn maintenance company. My life long passion is gardening. I do all my vegetable gardening organically and am trying to convert all my gardening to organic. I am a newbie chicken owner with a hope to become a beekeeper sometime in the not so distant future.
In 2011, I was able to accomplish my goal of becoming a Master Gardener. What I learned, is that I have a lot more to learn. 
I hope you will join me and my garden helper, Kahlo, on my journey.
I can be contacted at charsgardening@yahoo.com.
Garden Helper “Kahlo”
Chickens
Hi Char: I was looking for a way to cover my Garden Bed that we just constructed and planted last week. Since I have a Chocolate Lab puppy who would love to dig in there, I needed some way to cover it so the vegetables could grow tall. Presently I put some chicken wire over it, but with the rain they are growing so fast I had to come up with a better way. Today I found your posting on google and I just went out and bought the supplies to make this cover. I bought the bird netting to cover it with. I hope it is durable enough. Thank you so much for your great plans and illustrations. I think we can manage to get it together tomorrow. We live in the Central Florida Area, and this is my first attempt at Raised bed gardening. I just wanted to be able to have some vegetables available without a run to the store. So far I am happy to see them all coming up. It almost looks like I might need a second garden bed. Thank you again for your great plan for the cover. I look forward to reading your posts in the future. Sheila Ammon
Hi Shiela, I am glad you are making one of the covers. They have worked very well for me. I made mine a few years ago and still use it on occasion, like when we had that late frost. I just put it over my bed and threw a tarp over it. If you don’t glue the joints you can bend the legs in and it will lay flat for storage. You may have to push the pipe into the fittings again after awhile, but mine haven’t fallen apart. Good luck, Charlotte