run area inside veggie garden

[waynesgarden]

Quote:
Sorry Hattie, I think you're going to find it hard to change the mind-set of anyone who watches his beloved hens yank out seedlings, strip the leaves from the broccoli plants, do all kinds of silly acrobatics at the trellis to eat snap peas drying on the vine, take dustbaths in any old raised bed it chooses or scratch every bit of mulch from the beds that it can. And then, have the audacity to tell me"sorry, slugs are not my cup of tea."

On the other hand, I also have 7 hens ranging through my "garden" year round. "Garden" in the British sense, "yard" on this side of the pond. (A case of two countries separated by a common language?) The garden that the hens are routinely evicted from are the 4000 square feet of raised vegetable beds. They are more than welcome to wander the lawns or plantings outside the fence to their heart's content and find whatever goodies they may wish to eat there.

This time of year they are fairly easy to control. The will "free-range" wherever I've cut a path through the snow.

Wayne

 

[Hattie the Hen]

Hi again! I'm old and fat too!!!! I use wide white fleece which I peg to canes in each corner of the raised bed. The fleece is great as the sun and rain can get through it, the chickens can't really see through it, and If you put another piece over the top it will keep the bugs out (very important with carrots). It also raises the temperature a few degrees so it's useful for early sowing and Protection in Autumn for late crops. I buy a whole roll (cheaper in the long run) 2 metres wide and I use good old-fashioned clothes pegs to fix to the bamboo canes. It's very quick and easy to un-pin when you want to pick the veggies etc. At the end of the season I put the fleece in the washing machine to clean it. Some years ago I bought the boards (made of double-walled black plastic) for the walls of the raised beds. They are a metre long and have corner fixings with poles that both hold the sructure together as well as going down into the earth. The boards are about 10 ins wide but you can fix another on top. In fact I used to use 2 piled up for my banty hen and her chicks when they were first outsde in the summer. I put some sheets of welded mesh over the top. It meant the other chickens could come and get used to them much earlier and the chicks were safe and protected and it kept the wind off them. I sed to put a sheet of clear plastic over about one third of the run and a big umbrella for shade. It worked very well. Bye for now!

 

[Hattie the Hen]

Hi Waynesworld, In fact I think we are both saying much the same thing. It's just vyour garden is much, much larger than mine. We both have two, or more gardens, I like to use the fleece because it's cheap, lightweight and quick to erect and makes the plants and produce invisible to the chickens. Your "yard" sounds wonderful. Years ago I had something similar and I remember the endless hours I spent keeping it looking good; all this after travelling around the world designing for the theatre, returning home to find mounds of produce needing to be dealt with!! Now I just grow a little for me and my chickens--little treats for all of us, with minimum effort. Any way I hope you have a great new planting season once the snow has gone. I know how that is over there as I worked a lot all over the US and Canada and met such lovely people who took me to see their beatiful yards and homes.I had such a great work life but all that travelling finally got me down and now I enjoy my quiet life. Bye for now!

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

I've never fenced in my garden. My chickens have free rain over it without any issues. I do lose a tomato here an there but not many. There to bissy folowing the horses an cows around the pasture eating bugs an undigested "whatever". I think I lost 4 tomatos last summer to my 30 chickens.

 

[willowcol]

Mine even hollowed out every single watermelon I grew this year, I didn't realize it til I went to check if they were ripe and found the backsides eaten and the melon hollow. I didn't have a problm with my tomatoes though, but they ate everything else I planted. I did get alot of cucumber late this year, I think they scattered the seeds around and I had cucumbers popping up everywhere.

 

[silkiechicken]

I fence out my birds from my gardens. Else they dig it up. One thing that make a difference of if it works or not is the type of veggies you grow, the birds you have and the space of garden vs other areas. 12 birds in a 50x60 back yard will probably kill any garden as the goods are easy pickings. Those same 12 birds free ranging on 3 acres, with a garden inside it unfenced will probably go just fine.

That said, with about an acre cleared where the birds roam, and an additional 6 in woods/trees, I fence off my garden or else they dig it up. 6 silkies ate an entire 12x12 patch of bok choi, while they did not touch the neighboring 6x6 patch of lettuce....

 

[al6517]

I am planning to just let my chickens in the garden during the winter months to just kinda clean up and scratch around and to add some yummy veggie chicken poooooooo fertilizer. Then again in the spring right after I deep till, but before sowing just to get the bugs and grubs all ate up.

AL

 

[ZooMummzy]

Quote:
This is exactly how I'm planning to do it once my garden and garden run is set up next summer.

 

[Hattie the Hen]

Be careful! Chicken poo is very powerful stuff and burns the roots of plants unless its well rotted down. Best to go round and collect it. Dig a deep hole (about 2/3 foot deep), line it with wet newspaper, pile in the poo, then top up with soil/compost and then sow some pea,beans, or squash in that soil. By the time their roots get down to the poo-ey depth it will be broken down enough to do a lot of good. Also working in the garden is not much fun if you are constantly treading in Poo. You will also be a lot more popular when you go indoors!!!!! HA! HA!

 

[WoodlandWoman]

Even Hattie keeps them out of the raised beds of veggies.

Mine are pretty good in the flower beds. They actually kept the weeds down, scratching around the perennials. Baby annuals wouldn't have survived, but mature perennials could take it.

They do fine around the raspberries, blueberries, grapes and kiwis, as far as the plants are concerned. As one poster put it, there is a "chicken tax" when it comes to the fruit.

Veggies, well, those are just too delicious! My biggest problem, is that I love planting rainbow colored chard in the bed outside my door and in pots. It looks pretty in so many places and it's so handy to cut a few leaves for dinner. Other than a big, juicy bug, it is the chicken's favorite food! I'm thinking about caging it, but that's not very decorative, is it???

I think the only way I'd keep them from eating unprotected chard would be if I put a mealworm or cricket dispenser next to it, running all day long!