What do you grow in your garden?

[V Chic Chick]

Most of the annuals I grow from seed in the kitchen, which is cramped as it is lol.

Veggies:
Carrots (first time this year)
Runner Beans (slugs love 'em grr)
Peas
Tomatoes
I've just been sent some French Climbing Beans by a friend of my dad's, so I'll plant them soon.

Fruit:
Strawberries
Raspberries
Blackcurrants
And I'm fighting down the brambles which give blackberries . . . they're a pest really. It's not very hot here so I can't go around growing melons and bananas and what not

Herbs:
Fennel
Rosemary
Thyme
Marjoram
Lemon Balm
Mint
Basil

I've also put in some sweet peas this year.

 

[mom'sfolly]

I have lemon balm, it seems to love the Texas heat. What do you do with yours? I have a gardening related question. I don't do much veggie gardening, but I do have lots of herbs. The chickens love them. What I want to know is how much rosemary can my chickens eat before I have preseasoned eggs?

It is a particular favorite for them.

Square foot gardening is a great book. It will help lay out beds. Here in central Texas tomatoes, peppers and blackberries do well. I have very little sun, so I've given up on most veggies. I always have a tomato plant or two and have rosemary, mint, basil, lemon balm, cilantro, parsley, chives, oregano and thyme. Most herbs are originally from hot climates and most do well in Texas.

 

[erinm]

I am in Mass.and I have


yellow beans
green "
beets
cabbage
brussel sprouts
3 kinds of lettuce
3 kinds tomatoes
cucumbers
sugar snaps

sweet corn
celery
kale
basil
rosemary
dill
2 kinds of pumpkins
garlic
blueberry bushes
raspberry vine
yellow squash


last year I failed with strawberries and cauliflower and minimal broccoli

and I am growing 2 little boys who like to help me plant!

erinm

 

[Judymae]

I crush lemon balm leaves and use in my ice tea. It is so lemony that my youngest son (7) likes to pick the leaves and chew on them.

 

[SeaChick]

Our yard is tiny (100' x 50' with a fairly big-footprint hpuse, garage and driveway) and most of it is shady in summer. The only sunny area is out front. So I have a perennial bed and a small raised veggie patch. The raised bed is about 5 x 18 and I plant it tightly and try to do succession-planting as much as possible. So right now I have broccoli, lettuce, spinach an peas in areas that will grow late cole crops and bush beans later on. I also relocated some perennials from one big corner of the flower bed to expand my tomato bed this year. Sorry, neighbors... you're gonna have to look at tomato plants instead of flowers!

This year I am growing:
tomatoes- 6 different variety plants
peppers
eggplant
various lettuces
spinach
arugula
bok choi (new this year)
fennel (new this year)
basil
beans- pole & bush
peas - early snap
carrots
broccoli
onions, scallions
swiss chard
and later cole crops to be determined: kale, broccoli, etc
also have chives, thyme, rosemary

I grow everything organically.

I have a big Japonese Beetle problem, esp on my roses, so I'm very interested to hear if chickens will eat them!

Stacey

 

[hencackle]

Seachick, you will be happy to know that chickens love the taste of Japanese beetles. All it takes is to catch a few and feed those to one chicken and within seconds the rest of the flock is pressed up against the garden fence begging.
Stephanie

 

[hipmarye]

Do y'all let your chickens run free in your gardens?
Being new to both chickens and a garden, I am fearful that the chickens would eat the veggies.

 

[cookinmom]

Quote:
There was a post on this a while back, and the general consensus seemed to be "only when we're done with it".

I picked my first cucumber yesterday

to slice with dinner, so my mom could have some of it too, but in the fuss of getting dinner on I forgot

and it's still in my fridge! But there are a couple more out there ready to come in this morning.

I have to tell y'all something I tried and it's working. When I clean out my henhouse, I have this wheelbarrow full (very full) of hay mixed with chicken poo. After replenishing mulch around the tomatoes and cukes and herbs, I still had a lot left, so I took it to the edge of the yard where I'm growing stuff and dumped it out. I watered it well every day for a few days, and by that time my pumpkin seedlings were ready for planting, so I brought them out and made a hole in the top of the pile and planted it right in the hay, pulling it up pretty close around the plant. It's working really good! I tried another one where I dumped out the hay, spread it into a nice neat square about a foot deep, watered it real good and planted 3 red geraniums, some other flowers, a real pretty perennial that I don't know what it really is (Home Depot said Whirling Butterfly,which I've never heard of), and 3 plantings of yellow squash. So far it's all doing well. It's too early to know how they will bear, but hopefully it will work. This is a take-off of the Lasagna Gardening method, just without the newspapers and the layering. Our grass is so dead here from drought, I figured I'd just skip the newspaper step!

 

[V Chic Chick]

My lemon balm is growing rampant - I keep having to cut massive amounts off to keep it to a reasonable size, despite it being in clay soil and partial shade. I hate just throwing it on the compost heap, and there's far more than two chickens can eat. Has anyone got any ideas as to how to incorporate it into cooking?

 

[Backyard Buddies]

Quote:
Definitely not! My coop is in my veggie garden but I shoo them out to the yard and past all of the tempting tidbits. Even then, they still manage to nibble a bit on the way. But, as was suggested, after the season is over the chickens are the best at cleaning up the beds and getting them ready for the next season. They're helpful in so many ways!