Stop eating my peas, *&%#* chickens!!

[Yay Chicks!]

I need a quick and easy way to keep the girls out of the garden (other than keeping them confined to the run ALL the time). I took my eye off of them and they ate all the leaves off the peas. Now that I have some other tender veggie starts, I would like to protect my investment! I am no carpenter and funds are very limited now (a new roof followed by major plumbing repairs!), so a cheap solution would also be a bonus. Cheap and easy - that's the ticket.

Got any ideas?

 

[heartsizedfarm]

I'm planning on making some large square screens -- basically hardware cloth stapled to frame lumber -- and setting them on bricks over the veg garden material as it comes sprouting or fruiting. So hoping to protect the strawberry garden that way, and also hoping to prevent digging up of the new little plants. I notice once things get established they leave them alone. Anyway, this is not tried and true advice. This is my plan, experiment, for this spring.