Chicken Landscaping (our plan)

[traceyleezle]

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I have that book, that's how I usually garden, 4x4 plots, it's soooooo much easier.

 

[OverEggstended]

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I rented at my last place and could not dig up a garden. Luckily... my step father does drywall!I had him save me a crapload of those 5 gallon buckets the mud comes in. They just needed to be rinsed and were free! You can paint the outsides if you really care about aesthetics!

If you drill a few holes in the bottom and put in a layer of gravel (just like you do for a flowerpot)... they are GREAT! If you wanted to use less bagged soil than i did, you CAN cut them down... my mother does this and burries them in a gravel bed for a weed free garden.

Tomato cages fit perfectly in them and you can add plant specific fertilizers if you want (like hair clippings or from your hairbrushes for the tomatos!). The wire trellises can be cabletied together to be a good 5 foot high I found out!

I grew sugar-snap peas, tomatoes, lemon cucumbers (these are GREAT!!!), peppers, and zuchini with no problems!

Did I mention... no bending to pick or weed!!!!! I have FM and MS so this was GREAT!

 

[traceyleezle]

Alright, how did this post become about gardening? LOL How about some coop advice too.

 

[possumqueen]

At MY house, my chickens are all about gardening. I mean, I need chickens BECAUSE I want a nice garden. The pets, the pretty birds, and the eggs are just a bonus.

Actually, traceyleezle, if you refurbish your yard you'll make the house more attractive to a buyer. But then RHewitt might be right that your DH might not want to leave grandma's place.

Bottom line, blossom where you are. If you keep waiting for the perfect place you'll never bloom. Do the chickens and the gardens now so you'll be ready for better down the road and have a little fun on the way there.

 

[applefalls]

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Chickens are a gardener's friend!
My husband and I got chickens for reasons very similar to yours. We keep ours all year in an A-frame chicken tractor. We only have eight chickens and started them in June in an unused, fenced-in garden plot that was roughly 12X12 feet. (We open one wall of the tractor each morning so they can wander around the garden plot.) By fall, the garden plot had no vegetation and a nice layer of well-tilled soil.

By the end of fall, we moved the tractor into another fenced in garden plot so that the first plot can 'rest' all winter and be ready for planting in the spring.

We are using the A-frame tractor because we move it every other week within the garden plot, and then move it each season to a new garden plot. It is well built and our chickens are able to keep warm in it through the winter. (We don't live too far from you.) We put pine shavings in the top, where their nesting boxes are, and during this muddy part of winter, we put lots of pine shavings on the dirt floor of the coop, too, adding more as needed.

We, too, use rye grass when the garden plots are recovering from planting and waiting for chickens. We also throw fall leaves into whichever garden plot holds the chickens.

In all, the chickens have helped to make some wonderful gardens for our home!

 

[4CiTyCHicHENs]

whoa, whoa, whoa..... I can put my chickens IN my garden???!!!

 

[4CiTyCHicHENs]

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I TOTALLY agree!!!

 

[traceyleezle]

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How very true. I know we aren't going anywhere for at least the next year so I might as well enjoy what little dirt I have.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

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not at the same time you have your garden in, but during fall and winter you can with no problem

 

[4CiTyCHicHENs]

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How very true. I know we aren't going anywhere for at least the next year so I might as well enjoy what little dirt I have.

& that 1 year, might turn into 5... You NEVER know! thats why its called the Future! You plan for 1 but Gods plan could be totally diff!