Hot composting with chicken bedding and garden waste

[vehve]

Ours have been trying to get to the leaves all summer too, but now when we harvested the chokes, the leaves had started to dry already so I thought they would serve better as compost food.

 

[lazy gardener]

I don't have sun chokes, but my girls are harvesting the dried squash leaves. They prefer the dry ones, and munch them like they are potato chips. I still have one productive zucchini plant in my garden. (Not for long. It's supposed to snow on Sunday.) I've been able to harvest 3 zucchini/week from it since the cold weather hit. Have to fight the girls for those squash!

 

[aart]

The sunchokes are not grown for harvest, stragglers yet in my now all garlic bed, but were good for shading part of the run. Birds are confined so the greens are easy picking for me to give to them.

Most folks beg people to take all their extra prolific zucchs.....not chicken keepers tho.

 

[lazy gardener]

I've never had too much zucchini. I usually plant 3 hills, and there are only 2 in my family who eat it. So yummy on the grill. I've never tried a sun choke. But, now that I have a bit more tillable land, perhaps I'll give them a try.

 

[hennible]

Zucchini relish... Yum

 

[vehve]

Sunchokes are very invasive, or at least that's my understanding, so plant them in a contained area.

 

[aart]

They are invasive, tenacious, prolific self propagators....tho you can keep them cut down/confined with the mower.

You can pull them up pretty easily, especially when small/young, but it's difficult to get ALL the rhizomes(I think it's a rhizome?) out, so they will keep coming up. The ones in my garlic bed were planted 10-12 years ago. I left a row of them along the north side of the bed to shade the run and harvested branches for the chooks to eat.

I transplanted a bunch along my roadway 'ditch' where I didn't want to mow, they make a nice screen and the sunflower like flowers are striking for about a week or so. My father family was mad for Jerusalem Artichoke Relish(YUK) and I've heard that they slice up nice for stirfry compared to water chestnuts for texture and crispness...I've never personally eaten them, not much of a cook.

 

[vehve]

They make a wonderful soup or pyrée. We grow them in plastic tubs to not get them where we don*t want them. Super easy plant, didn't need to weed and required quite little watering.

 

[lazy gardener]

Now, there's an idea I can wrap my head around without going off the deep end. Since I've never had them... obviously, the sensible thing to do would be to try them... Any how, I could plant some in a big tub, and put it in the chicken run... or somewhere near by to give them some extra shade/shelter next summer.

 

[vehve]

I wouldn't put it in the run, at least before they're a couple of feet tall. But you could keep them right outside the run, they'll grow to about 6-7 feet easily. We used 90 liter (~25 gallon) cement mixing tubs for ours.