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| I love seeing fluffy butts in the garden. |
I started gardening on the East Coast nine years ago. I had become incredibly passionate about gardening when living in California. Southern California was such a magical place, practically everything that I put in the ground grew. Plants thrived in Zone 10 under the Southern California sun. However, moving to the East Coast, I was forced to start all over again. My knowledge was based on Zone 10 plantings. Suddenly, I was faced by the new challenges of living in a place that truly has seasons, Zone 7A. It became even more apparent that once I added chickens to the garden, gardening with chickens was going to require me to step up my learning game too!
We started with a barren lot and over time, worked the land. We had successes and failures along the way. We learned quickly as to what enjoyed living in our yard, from perennials, to annuals to fruits and vegetables. Looking out across the yard, I felt a sense of pride and accomplishment, yet something was missing; chickens.
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| Spring time, front yard |
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| Side yard, May |
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| Summer blooms |
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| Early Spring, backyard beds are beginning to awaken |
Five years ago, I started noticing that chickens were turning up in cottage gardens. I had always loved chickens and certainly, from what I had read and seen, they were a possibility for my gardens. I read all that I could on the the subject of gardening with chickens. To my chagrin, in 2010 there was not much available. Yet, I had gained the confidence to add these wonderful characters to the gardens.
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| Tilly enjoying grass |
The chickens enjoy the gardens and I do as well. I love watching them discovering the waking gardens of Spring. I love finding them resting under the shade of an Elephant Ear Hosta. But most importantly, they add life to the garden. Do they make a mess? Sure. They love to dig in mulch, explore the woods and find a nice sunny to warm their feathers and close their eyes. I love that my gardens have become animated!
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| Sunshine scratches in mulch |
Here are some gardening tips that I have learned along the way with my flock:
1. Keep an eye on your chickens, if they are somewhere you do not want them to be, you can usually point their interests to another area.
2. Chickens love scratching in mulch. A quick clean-up with a rake is pretty easy.
3. Some chickens will enjoy watching you and spend their entire time in the garden accompanying you around.
4. Plant a chicken friendly garden where they can scratch, peck and eat til their hearts content. For us it was a garden with herbs, vegetables, berries and perennials. Here are my top 10 plants.
5. Surround off limit plants with chicken wire so that the flock explores elsewhere.
6. Keep you lawn mowed to 2 inches. This prevents grasses from becoming tangled in the chickens’ crops.
7. Keep the coop and run door open. Some will return to lay their eggs or roost.
8. Keep chemical/pesticides use low. Try implementing organic techniques.
9. Compost your manure to spread on your plantings. Learn to build a pretty composter here.
10. A good supply of grit should be available to help digest any fibrous materials from free-ranging in the gardens.
11. Plant some nasturtiums around and near the run for the chickens to eat.
12. Avoid feeding your chickens slugs!
Photo Credits: Tilly’s Nest
14 thoughts on “Gardening with Chickens”
What a beautiful yard! I love how you've planted and added in the seating areas! And Sunshine is beautiful!
GORGEOUS yard/garden. Beautiful FLUFFY BUTTS! Thank you for the gardening with chicken tips!
You have such a nice garden! Thank you for the post on the chickens, more inspiration on getting my of. I have a good video on "Chicken Tunnels" on my blog if you havn't seen it yet!
I love the pictures of your chickens! I think adding chickens to my backyard garden was the best gardening decision I've ever made. They are fantastic!
Interesting, after reading one of your older post a while back and a few other I am really interested in try to start a small garden in my back yard. I certainly do not have a green thumb so this will be interesting if I do try…
Thank you so much everyone for such lovely comments and sweet words about the girls. I can not agree more that chickens are such a great addition to the garden.
Family dad @ Yuthink, I would suggest visiting your local garden center. Most are incredibly helpful and supportive. They will help you amend your soil and select hardy plants that should thrive in your area. Start with a small area and go from there. Keep us posted on how things are going!
I just picked up this book and so far, it's fabulous!! I am working on developing my own free-range chicken garden right now, and I hope it will be ready for chickens come summertime!
This is such a gorgeous post! It made me smile from beginning to end. How I long to garden with chickens….I will keep an eye out for the book.
You have done a beautiful job with your landscaping. What an oasis! Gardening in Colorado was a challenge too. But now we're back in Texas and can't wait to start landscaping around our house once we get moved onto our homestead. We are already thinking ahead and plan to integrate our chicken coop with an adjoinging run that will allow us to let the chickens into the yard, garden or orchard. We can't wait!!
http://wannabepioneerwoman.blogspot.com/
Oh, your garden is beautiful! Thank you for sharing it (and the gardening with chickens tips!) with us.
Tilly is so cute!
Sure if we make a garden especially for chicken we have to follow all these tips very carefully.
Beautiful garden! I use to own a really nice garden like that with green grass and a variety of flowers in England but ever since I migrated to Australia it is impossible to grow good grass! The grass is nowhere near as green and soft as yours! It’s all crunchy and dry here and hard to maintain too.