You want a mix of herbs, forbs, grains, and grasses that compliment one another and do well in your climate, optimally coming into sason at different times of the year, and hopefully self propogating. Here's a
thread I started, but haven't recently updated, on my efforts to do exactly that)
Where are you in TX??? and your soil - is it the hard clays east of Austin, the rocky hill country, the dead sand prarie of western Texas? and what's your USDA growing zone???
I'm 8a (N FL Panhandle region, with lots of clays) - good results from a mix of clovers (red/crimson, yellow, white), flax, vetch. Buckwheat, sorghum, bluestem, sorrel, even sunflower or corn (for some vertical height), perrenial or cereal rye, panicum (that should do well in most of TX), orchard grass (sem-shady areas, but NOT particularly heat or drought tolerant, N TX only). Seasonally, you may do well with melons, cucumber, squash. Radishes and carrots can be used to help break up the soil some. Lavender, oregano, thyme, mint, rosemary (unkillable once established).
You can use annuals like marigolds, if you can keep the chickens from eating the seeds before they sprout, or buy at the big box, but that gets expensive fast.
