keeping my girls out of my garden

[jp57]

My girls have been good about staying out of my garden, but now they are driving me crazy. Every time a tomato ripens, they shred it. Would basic netting be enough to save them, or do I need to put some kind of fencing up?

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Fencing!

Netting, that thin kind... is dangerous in my experience and gets birds tangled in cutting off circulation. I consider it a death trap. Plus I suspect the chooks will just press on and pack around.

this is what I mean by the thin kind.

This type is called plastic fencing, *might* be better, but no personal experience...

Good luck beating them to the tasty maters!

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Back in the heady days of yesteryear when men were me and the sheep.... oh never mind.
The average free range homesteaders planted their garden on the back forty. The sheer distance between the chickens' coop (if they even had one) and the garden or truck patch provided some protection to the maters, pea, and bean blossoms.

 

[Malmendier]

I was told to keep new chicken in kennel near outher birds...
It's been about 3 weeks now how do I know if she's ready to go in with the rest of the flock she still runs away from them when I let them all out

 

[Alexander2000]

Put some fence like wire fence.

 

[aart]

My girls have been good about staying out of my garden, but now they are driving me crazy. Every time a tomato ripens, they shred it. Would basic netting be enough to save them, or do I need to put some kind of fencing up?

Fence them in(a run) or fence them out(of the garden).
Chicken wire would work, it's what it's for.

 

[jp57]

Thanks for the help. I was hoping to avoid fencing. It's not really a garden. I had to give up my big fenced in garden when I moved. The soil where I am now is mostly clay, so I did 8'x4' raised beds. I have 3 of them. The tomatoes are the only things they are eating. I guess I can do a temporary fence and take it down in the fall.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Raised beds are easy to fence with chicken wire. Just sink posts in each corner and wrap the chicken wire around the perimeter from post to post to post. Wire the ends together and that's it. At the end of the season, undo the ends, unwrap the beds and you have precut fencing to use again the next year. Keeping chickens and rabbits out of gardens is the one thing chicken wire does well.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Fence them in(a run) or fence them out(of the garden).
Chicken wire would work, it's what it's for.

During the dem dark past of free ranging ALL of a homesteaders animals freeranged.

The sole purpose of all those picturesque split rail fences was to keep the cows, sheep, horses, mules etc out of the crops and off the cultivated land, everything else was free to range on.

 

[jp57]

I just started picking the tomatoes when they start to change color and put them on my widow sill. That way they don't have a chance at them.