Mumsy's Romantic Garden Advice

[MumsyII]

Mumsy maybe one day you could speak of poisonous plants to chickens? I know that most chickens won't eat what's bad for them. I've been doing some research on them. My mom brought karubi (sp) vegetable home and my dogs liked it. I was looking to see if safe for them and kept doing some research.

There are so many sites with difference of opinions. I've seen flax & garlic on several sites which I know is untrue since I would have dead chickens by now. Others I have seen a lot are potato and tomato leaves, Lilly's , mornings glory, clematis. The tots ate potato leaves and tomato leaves when they were housed next to the veggie garden. They didn't like the tomatoes but they loved the potatoe leaves. The Lilly's they tried but didn't eat them after.

I guess another reason I ask is because when I trim back my plants everything goes in the compost pile which the hens will have access to. I have a lot of plants on the list. My gut says I don't need separate compost piles for f.dofferent plants but wonder what your thoughts are on it? I mean last year everything went in one compost pile which the hens happily dug threw for weeks and obviously they are fine

Good questions. I'll sleep on it and try to put my experiences into the conversation.

 

[armorfirelady]

Charged the battery so here are the 3 other colors I didn't get pics of a couple of days ago

They are beautiful Kausandra.

 

[armorfirelady]

Mumsy we are having a rainy day here & my mom stopped by to drop off veggies for the hens. Cooked beets are their new fav veggie.
Anyways I have been telling her about this thread and your beautiful gardens so she sat for awhile to look at your pictures. She loved them and called it a perfect wild paradise

she was having fun trying to identify the plants. She has gardened for years. It was and is her stress reliever after work to spend hours in her gardens. She also collects seeds as she walks the village. We have a lot of public gardens and pots the local gardening club cares for. It's some of her favorite places to collect seeds. She also will ask people if she can collect them from private yards. We have both benefited from her seed gathering.

She says your gardens are very beautiful and looks forward to looking at more pictures.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Thank you Mumsy. I have been working on him slowly and I think talking about it explanning ways to make it pretty yet hid the spot for chickens is what convinced him. He tries to play the tough guy, but he's a softy even with the chickens.

Kass your 4o'clocks are lovely. Castor beans scare me.

Armor, hygrandeas I think change color depending on the soil ph. Acid makes them blue I think and alkaline makes them pink. I might have it switched though. It certainly does sound like you have unleashed the gardening monster that was hiding in you.





Leah - this home is up the road from me. I think they have done a pretty good job of making it look natural while creating a barrier between them and the road. If you like I can take more and get names of the plants. There are a few roses, a buddleja davidii, and another that I would love to identify because I think it is awesome. It has purple leaves and produces these puffs that tumble off.

Yes! I'd love to see more and thank you If the others don't want to see, you could PM... otherwise you could go ahead and put them here. And the specific plants would be great too.

 

[MumsyII]

Mumsy we are having a rainy day here & my mom stopped by to drop off veggies for the hens. Cooked beets are their new fav veggie.
Anyways I have been telling her about this thread and your beautiful gardens so she sat for awhile to look at your pictures. She loved them and called it a perfect wild paradise

she was having fun trying to identify the plants. She has gardened for years. It was and is her stress reliever after work to spend hours in her gardens. She also collects seeds as she walks the village. We have a lot of public gardens and pots the local gardening club cares for. It's some of her favorite places to collect seeds. She also will ask people if she can collect them from private yards. We have both benefited from her seed gathering.

She says your gardens are very beautiful and looks forward to looking at more pictures.

Thank you. What a lovely thing to read this morning. Truly. I also have fun trying to identify plants on my vacations and travels. Husband and I like to take road trip and walking along sidewalks in old town neighborhoods is one of my great pleasures. And old town parks! I love trying to guess what the unfamiliar trees are! Your mom and I would be great friends I am sure.

I have been thinking about what I could add to the poisonous plants for chickens discussion. I no longer think having a list and going the route of eradicating plants from the flocks reach is a workable solution. For a number of reasons. My garden is chalk full of poisonous plants. Not terrible killers like a few we have already discussed but there are just too many for me to worry about. So I don't. And I only have a half acre. Any of you out there free ranging on multiple acres? Well...How could you possibly make note of every poisonous leaf, twig, and berrie? Even some insects carry toxins to birds.

So..I trust my birds. I've observed them. They will indeed pinch off pieces of things I know are not good. Rhubarb leaves, avocado skins in the compost pile (yes. I throw those out there sometimes) Even my chick run has things that are dangerous. If there was ever a bird that would poison itself, it would have to be my baby Blue Slate turkey poults. They didn't. None of the chicks raised in there touched the Virginia Creeper that was coming up but they devoured every piece of Burdock leaf and dandelion they could find. I think free ranging or giving chicks opportunity to learn young is key? I'm not sure but I don't think I"ve had a poisoned bird except for the two that died of lead poisoning. And that didn't happen on my property. Some weird things have happened to some in my flock but I'm pretty sure none of those weird things were caused by what they ate in the garden.

Bottom line on poisonous plants for chickens for me personally is not to worry about it. Chickens can't taste so much as they can smell really well. If the smell doesn't turn them off they might taste. If they think it's bad, they walk away and try something they know.

I would like to know what the experiences any of the rest of you have had.

 

[armorfirelady]

I agree the list would be long. My girls don't free range daily but I did enjoy having them range the whole yard in the spring. And I have some of those poisonous plants I found listed in my yard & they are still fine. The new tots ate the potato leaves like they were candy. The lily & tomato leaves they tried and didn't eat them anymore.

I found it interesting that garlic & flax seed were on several lists as being poisonous. I guess we have all been lucky since I know a lot of us feed our chickens both of them

I will just keep dumping everything in the compost and hope my girls are smart enough to scratch over whats not good for them

I will still plant my hydrangea next to the coop. Its on the side they wont have access to but since they were half price I was thinking of putting one on the other side as well as a natural shade area for them. But I was also thinking something that would climb up the side of the coop and cover it. Still thinking on that. I don't want something that gets heavy as it grows over the coop. something they can lay under for shade or roost in when it gets larger.
I am not a fan of evergreen bush types. I've pulled out all the ones I had around my house.

Burning bush is what I have in place of them. That might work with something climbing to go over it.

 

[browncow15]

So I've been trying to follow but I think I've subscribed to to many threads!! mumsy your gardens are beautiful I hope someday I can have my own sanctuary as beautiful as yours! We purchased 5 acres a couple of years ago and are in the process if doing a complete overhaul, which is taking a ton of work!! It had been neglected for several years due to money troubles the previous owners had.

Anyway, my question, could you describe your composting process? I've got several piles of various things; including a pile of cow manure and straw that I'm not sure when is ok to put on the garden, but I'm not really sure what to do with it all.

 

[MumsyII]

So I've been trying to follow but I think I've subscribed to to many threads!!

mumsy your gardens are beautiful I hope someday I can have my own sanctuary as beautiful as yours! We purchased 5 acres a couple of years ago and are in the process if doing a complete overhaul, which is taking a ton of work!! It had been neglected for several years due to money troubles the previous owners had.

Anyway, my question, could you describe your composting process? I've got several piles of various things; including a pile of cow manure and straw that I'm not sure when is ok to put on the garden, but I'm not really sure what to do with it all.

Well...This question made me cringe because last year my compost pile was a huge going concern. I even named it 'Elliot' the dragon. I kept it turned, moist, and fed. In late winter, we put it all into the beds in the potager garden. It hadn't broken down completely yet so there are a lot of potatoes coming up in all kinds of odd places. Had some pumpkin and tomato seeds germinate here and there too. No big deal and I easily pulled up things in the wrong place. This year the large flock I have free ranging made a mucked up mess of my beautiful compost area. Stuff is spread out all over the orchard. I need to start it over this fall when we clean out the garden, harvest everything we can, and pick the orchard apples and pears. Basically all I do to start it is begin piling green stuff. Then a few shovels of soil from the edges. Then more green stuff, kitchen waste, grass clippings when there are any to spare. Litter from the pens, and over and over again. I keep the pile low but move it along like a huge snake. I can not physically fork big piles. That's why I keep it low. But those chickens! They won't let me keep it piled so it will break down! They are like digging/scratching maniacs! Back to the drawing board.

 

[armorfirelady]

Quote: This made me laugh. I thought I was the only one finding pumpkins growing everywhere and several random tomato plants I didn't plant. They are even growing in the compost bin and in a pile of dirt that was dug out from the trench I am digging and nowhere near where pumpkins were stored

I def don't do any extra work with my compost. I just pile it all in in no particular order and in the spring through it all back in the garden

 

[coldupnorth]

So I have one of those plants that I bought that has taken over one of my flower areas. I've been trying for years to get rid of it. It was supposed to be a ground cover for shade called Barrenwort (epimedium), but it climbs like crazy and the flowers do not look like barrenwort flowers that I've looked up. It resembles the bindweed or wild buckwheat (polygonum convolvulus L.) that we have growing all around, except that the leaves are bigger.