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Because I was addressing the issue of how to use chicken manure in the food production cycle, I really did not explain the role of the blanket of leaves in preparing your garden for next spring's planting.
But since you've addressed that, let me tell you WHY I place that blanket of leaves on my garden for the winter.
The leaves may or may not fully compost before spring planting. They will definitely compost at least partially before planting, and if the leaves were chopped up (by a lawn mower) before being put on the garden first, then there is a better chance that they will fully -- or nearly fully -- complete the compost process by spring. Of course, if oak leaves or pine needles are a significant portion of the leaf blanket (as they are in my area), then there is no way that the blanket will be completely composted come March, when I begin planting. (Oak leaves and pine needles are some of the last leaves to compost - most leave will compost quicker than these.)
But in reality, I'm not really wanting the blanket to have completely composted before planting time.
In fact, if it were to ever do that, I'd be out there adding more, uncomposted autumn leaves to the mix at some point.
Yes, I am wanting it to do SOME composting over the winter, so that some of the nutrients in the organic matter will open up to my plants earlier in the spring.
But I am NOT wanting All of the leaves to compost over the winter.
When chickens are allowed free range time in the garden, I actually have two reasons why I don't want that blanket to completely compost:
1, (This reason is true whether or not chickens roam the garden in the winter) The blanket of leaves provides protection to both the physical soil structure inside that bed, and also to the earthworms and the beneficial microorganisms that live in that garden soil. Both of those are worth going to great extremes to protect, as they are both hugely important to the health and well being of my garden come springtime.
If that blanket of leaves were to completely compost, then it would not be able to do as good of a job in protecting my physical soil structure, nor would it continue to provide a shield protecting my earthworms and microorganisms from the harsh winter weather above the bed.
That is why I make the bed six inches thick. And to be honest with you, I am using mostly oak leaves for my leaf bed, cuz that is what everybody around here grows. If you have mostly other types of trees -- now that I think about it -- you might need your blanket to be eight or even ten inches high to protect your bed. Particularly in the north, where winters are harsher and longer than in the mid-south where I live. (I'm in Memphis, TN, zone 7)
The fact that the leaf bed has NOT completely composted by planting time is NOT a problem.
All I do when I go to planting is gently scrape the leaf blanket off the top of the garden bed, and then dig my holes to put transplants in. Or dig my furrows and lay the seeds down in the normal manner.
Now, if I'm planting transplants, after I put the plants in their holes and water them in the normal way, I then replace the leaf covering I just scraped off -- adding more leaves to the mix if I can't get the leaf blanket to be four (4) inches thick after planting.
If I'm planting seeds directly into the ground, then I do not want to put any mulch back on top of the soil until the new little plants are at least six inches tall. The new little plants must be at least two or three inches taller than the mulch surrounding them before they can safely be mulched.
You always need at least 4 inches of organic mulch on top of your garden beds at all times, except when little seeds are germinating directly in the soil.
So that is one reason why -- although I do aid the composting of the leaves and chicken manure mix over the course of the winter -- I do not do it with the aim of turning ALL of that material into compost during that time. Just some of it.
The second reason why I don't want my blanket of leaves to completely compost -- if I have chickens scratching into it over the winter -- is that you need to have something there to absorb the "fresh" manure that your birds are bound to drop in there as they play in that blanket of leaves. Fresh chicken manure is hot and will burn your plants when you go to planting in the spring, if you don't do something to neutralize that in the meantime.
But to be honest with you -- I draw up my garden plans for the new year by Christmas, and part of the reason is so that I can block from the reach of my chickens any area that I'm going to grow salmonella or ecoli sensitive plants in. Plants like lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, swiss chard, spinach, strawberries, etc.
You do NOT want your chickens dropping their fresh manure in the areas where these plants will be planted some time next year. These plants grow low to the ground, and they are not cooked -- and who wants to chance salmonella or ecoli or some other problem in their own home grown food?
I know I don't.
So what I do is that I take some heavy wire I buy by the roll at Lowe's -- this stuff is stout enough to allow me to make half circle "ribs" I stick into the ground to serve as the basis for holding up the cloth that I then use to make my weather protecting "tunnel" out of. Actually, it is the same type of wire that is used to make clothes hangers, except that clothes hanger wire is cut and bent into a different shape for a different purpose than what I use the wire for out in my garden.
My rows are four feet wide, so I take this 50 foot roll of heavy wire and cut it into pieces that are about six feet long. Then I slightly bend them, and poke the two ends into the ground.
Now I have the skeletal structure that I need to hang my tunnel cloth (aka, remay, aka "floating row cover", aka frost blanket) on top of.
Because my rows are four feet wide and I leave about 2 feet of height in the center of the tunnel, I need 10 foot wide floating row cover to do the job. Since my rows are 50 feet long, I search long and hard till I find somebody who will sell me floating row cover that is 10 feet wide and either 50 or 100 feet long. This is a harder to find, but nonetheless, a standard size for the stuff to come in.
Once I have the wire loops in place over the garden, my wife and I hang the floating row cover material over it. We then weight it down on both sides with 2 X 4 strips of lumber, one piece of lumber placed right next to the other with no gaps for wind, insects or slithering snakes to get in through.
At this point, we have essentially built a small hoop house right there on the garden bed.
If you use remay (aka floating row cover) as your tunnel covering, you will find that it gives the plants below some protection from harsh weather conditions, while it allows rain and some fresh air to get through. It also provides some insect protection, making it the ideal non-chemical way to protect your cabbage from that infamous white butterfly that comes around each spring and drops cabbageworm eggs on your cabbages. Ever had a cabbage being eaten up by little green worms? Well, this is a way to protect your cabbage from that ever happening in the first place. If the butterfly can't get to your cabbage, she can't lay her worm eggs on it. This can also help protect squash from squash borers and the infamous squash bug too.
But back to chickens -- I make sure and put these tunnels out by Christmas anywhere I'm going to grow a crop that is particularly vulnerable to diseases like salmonella or ecoli. The tunnel blocks the chickens access to those particular garden beds. They can't get in there to play in the first place, therefore they cannot drop their fresh manure on the future growing areas.
I don't have any reason to suspect I have these diseases in my flock -- but why even take the chance? After all, that is MY FAMILY that will eat the produce out of that garden. I believe a little extra caution is a good thing.
BTW, I do not worry about my chickens scratching around in (or even dropping their manure in) those garden beds where I'm going to plant tomatoes, bell peppers, egg plants, or other things that grow off the ground and/or cooked.
Since I routinely cage these crops to grow vertically, and since I also routinely clip off the first eight inches or so of growth from the surface of the soil when the plants get taller, it really doesn't matter if the chickens drop a bit in these garden beds. By the time they grow vertically, and also by the time I prune the areas close to the ground, and also by the time I put four inches of fresh organic mulch on the ground after planting -- well, it just turns out that the chickens can't hurt these garden areas.
So I only cover up the areas that will grow plants close to the ground, and which will not be cooked well.
And all of this works -- folks in these parts say I grow the best stuff in the area. And my garden seems to thrive even when other gardens in this area fail.
e
