(Trying to) Chicken Proof the Herb Garden

My front yard and any un-fenced areas of vegetation is continually and systematically destroyed by small, feathered, bipedal, endothermic, tetrapods.  Or, in layman's terms......

Chickens.

I have a love/hate relationship with my chickens.  They give me delicious eggs and occasionally (or not-so-occasionally if the roosters are peckerheads) provide us with a delectable supper.  They also eat a lot of bugs around the house as well as aerate the litter in the goat pen, add plenty of material to the compost heap, take care of our kitchen scraps and provide hours of entertainment.

But they also lay waste to any unprotected greenery, especially those plants that are young, tender and vulnerable to the scratching claws of the avian monsters.  Spring flowers have to be a tough breed around here as the moment something green pops out of the ground, the chickens are all over it.  And it seems the second I turn my back from planting something, they are right there, digging & scratching up the dirt right around the base of the plant.  And the plant rarely makes it through the excavation process.

I suppose we could build a fenced chicken run.  But I'm too lazy (and I've got Paul too busy).  And even though I am constantly running outside, screaming at the biddies to get out of the gardens, I do enjoy seeing them free ranging around the property and chasing bugs.

So if I want a garden, it's a must to have it fenced in somehow.  A few years ago Paul put up a permanent fence around the berry garden and that is pretty much chicken-free.  The two raised beds in the front yard have hardware attached to the sides so I can put PVC pipes on them to create a hoop structure and cover it with netting or plastic.  But my flower garden is subjected to yearly excavation. Only the tough flowers like iris, day lilies and well-established bushes survive.  I've planted countless other flowers there only to see them dead before they bloom.

I've been working on getting a herb garden in the front yard.  Two years ago I selected a site right around the well head and planted some iris and day lilies around it.  They took off nicely.  The next year I expanded it and just threw in some melon plants (because I ran out of room everywhere else).  We only got a handful of melons though because of the chickens.  This year I was eager to start putting herbs in my herb garden.  At first I thought I was just going to have to live with the fact that any herbs would have to be placed in pots and just have a garden bed filled with pots instead of actually placing the plants in the ground.

Spring 2011

Spring 2012

But then I got a brilliant idea.  The reason the plants never make it is that the chicken love to scratch up the freshly turned soil right around the plants, not necessarily because they are eating the plants themselves (although it does occasionally happen).  So what if I denied the birds access to the soil around my herbs?  Mulching, no matter how thickly spread, would just invite them to scratch around more.  I hate landscaping fabric.  Mini-fences around each plant wasn't going to happen.  So I used what we have an almost limitless supply of; Rocks!

There is a section of our property that I call our quarry.  Although the term quarry could be used for just about every inch of our homesteading ground, this particular area has some really nice looking, flat rocks.  Perfect for laying around newly planted herbs!

Newly planted Sage & a volunteer Yarrow.

Spring 2013.....and the herbs are still standing!

The garden has been planted for three days now and I have not lost a single herb or flower to the chickens.  There is evidence of chicken scratching as some of the mulch has been kicked up onto some of the rocks, but the plants themselves have been spared!  I think I have finally discovered the secret to gardening with chickens.....rocks!

And if covering the garden area with rocks doesn't work.....I'll use the rock to bash the head in of whichever chicken I find digging it up.

So, now what?

In a weak-willed moment at the local nursery, I put a pack of these in my basket:

We love sweet potatoes.  Last year when they were on like super-sale (like 30 cents a pound or something), I bought a bunch of them and canned them.  They normally run around 88 cents per pound, and I'm too cheap to buy them when they are that high.

So when I saw the slips, I figured I should buy them - screw the grocery store!  Can you say "Impulse Shopper"?

But anyhow.  Now that I have them, what do I do with them?  Having only attempted growing normal potatoes once in my life and miserably failing at that, I cannot say that I have any idea what to do with white potatoes let alone sweet potatoes.  I'm pretty sure they kinda-sorta grow the same way, but I'm also pretty sure that there are differences in them.  The first being that you just don't throw a teeny-tiny sweet potato seed in the ground, you start with a slip.  But that's the extent of my sweet 'tater knowledge.

I'm off to do some internet searching on it, but since I'm always more prone to listen to those I actually know and might have some real experience, I'm hoping that you'll give me some pointers on how you grow yours.

Edited:  I must point out that we have NO soil so to speak.  We have rocks, clay and more rocks.  The garden beds that DO contain soil have been spoken for already so I'm hoping that maybe I can plant them in a bunch of wasted hay or "kind'a dirt" like regular potatoes.

Gardening question for the day

Q:  How long should it take you to plant a dozen pepper plants?

A:  Too long.  Plus another hour.

Because you know that one cannot simple go outside, dig a hole & throw the plant in the ground.  Oh no.  First you must find the shovel & trowel that the dog has taken from on top of the picnic table and hidden somewhere in the front yard.  Then you have to cart the plants from the back porch, through the house, avoid a potentially catastrophic bone-breaking fall from overly friendly cats trying to rub up against your leg while carrying too many plants at one time, through the front door without letting twenty million flies in, schooch humongous sloppy dog out of the way, across the front yard avoiding same overly friendly sloppy dog, and attempt to open broken garden gate propped open by two 2x6's using your foot so the dogs don't follow you into the garden.

Once securely inside the garden, you realize that you still need additional items to make planting of the peppers easier.  Bucket for compost, gloves, trowel/shovel that you eventually found, etc., and after procuring said items realize that that you really should weed some of the area where the plants will be going.

Willy-nilly weed the blueberry bed (where the peppers are going).  Toss delectable goodies over the fence into the goat pen where the goats act as if they haven't been feed in a week and a half and listen to the sound of goat skulls being cracked against each other.....all over a handful of weeds which they will eventually turn their nose up at because there was a bit of dirt on it.

While in the garden, I notice that the bed containing our grape vines is wildly overgrown.  Start weeding that bed. Finally realize that I haven't put my gloves on so am now picking thorns out of my flesh because the stinking horse nettle plants that have taken over.

Take a short break for a beverage and to cool down (it was in the upper 80's you know) and go back out to plant the peppers.  Again.  But before I can get to the garden, I notice that I haven't finished weeding my soon-to-be herb garden and since I'm in a weeding mood I move over there and finish that job.  Of course the chickens are suddenly interested in this area and I have to shoo them away (i.e. scream like a raving lunatic) every ten seconds or they will destroy what few plants I have yet to "chicken proof".

I can now go back to planting the peppers.  Again-again.  Except I now realize that Herman has (yet again) his head stuck in the fence.  I could just leave him there and hope he'll eventually maneuver his why-do-I-have-horned-goats head out of there, but it is awfully hot outside and I don't want him to get overheated yelling and struggling.  So I walk over to the other side of the pen (because it would just be too easy if he kept getting stuck on the near side of the pen) and get his head unstuck.  While I'm on the far side of the goat pen, I stop to admire the wild phlox growing back there.  Then start walking farther down the path trying to ID some other wild plants, taking a sprig or two here and there and bring them in the house for later positive identification.  Since I'm at the house and near the water faucet I start to untangle the 100' of knotted hell mess of hose that will allow me to water the pepper plants that I will eventually put into the ground.

But now that I have the hose handy, I may as well top off the goat / chicken water buckets and give them some cool water.  So.  Back to the peppers.  Again-again-again.

And this time I actually did what I set out to do several hours earlier....plant the peppers!!!

Although I have no idea why it took so long for me to do so.

Thankful for a rainy day

This past winter, Paul has been working on getting a fence line cleared and three weeks ago I spread grass seed over the open area.   Paul then hooked up a big cedar tree to the tractor and drug it across the area to get the seed smooshed in a bit.  We were lucky enough to time it right with Mother Nature that we had a nice light rain soon afterwards and again about a week later.

The fence line and the open area right around it will provide grazing for Ms. Melman (the mule) and the wooded interior will provide plenty of browse for the goats.

For the past week, it's been pretty hot and I've been worried about the newly forming grass.  The area is really too far away from the house to use the hose on it so we were just going to have to pray that rain would come before all those new little delicate shoots became crispy and dead.

Just before I started to really worry, we got rain!  Yesterday evening we had a rainstorm.  Not for long, but enough to ease my hydration worries.  And today it's overcast and sprinkling!

4/20: Just seeded

5/6: Little bit o' green showing

5/16: More green! 

So even though it's a bit gloomy out and not very conducive for gardening or playing outside, I'm happy for the moisture.  Besides, there is plenty to do indoors.  Like make cookies.  Or a cake.  Or banana bread.....

PS - Oh Bonnie Williams......were are you?  You won the giveaway & I cannot guarantee that this big honking bar of chocolate will last much longer in this chocolate-loving household!! :)

My Garden and Tiny's Yarden

My vegetable garden is pretty much nonexistent.  Half of the tomato plants I started from seed this winter were torn up by the chickens.  The other half (which were in the somewhat-protected area of the berry garden) are still alive, but not thriving.

Sad little tomato plant.  One of the few survivors
of the Great Chicken Scratching Massacre of 2013.

Not a single pepper plant came up from my starts and since it's way too late to start them from seed now, I broke down and bought a green, yellow and red variety from the local nursery.

I planted cucumbers and peas along one of the garden fences a few weeks back and the peas are coming up nicely.  The cucumbers, not so much.  Hopefully I can keep the rogue chickens out of the garden and they will find other things to scratch at and destroy.

Cucumbers; not so nice looking.

Peas; pretty nice looking.

Chickens are little feathered excavating machines.  Destructive beyond imagination.  You wouldn't think that those little biddies could rip up so much vegetation in so little time.  If one were to park oneself right outside my house, you would see me busting out of the screen door like a rocket, screaming "Freaking Chickens in the Garden!!" at the top of my lungs, flailing my arms in the air at least three times a day.

Trying to flee the scene of the crime.

Of course, this is really no excuse for me to have been so late with the garden.  I could have put up the netting over the still-bare raised beds in the front yard.  Or we could lock down the chickens. Although that would require us to build a pen for them and that's not very high on the priority list.

So my garden is still not planted.  But it's on this week's To Do List.  I've got to get the peppers in, plant the squash & melon seeds and maybe even work on my kind'a newish herb garden (big reveal on the next post.....exciting, I know).

But speaking of something new, did you know that Tiny Gardener has a Facebook Page called Yarden?  Yup, she does!  Do you like stalking strangers (and mind you, she is most definitely strange) from your laptop and peering into the lives of their suburban poultry and gardening?  Then go "Like" her page over on the evil Facebook!  I'm sure she'd be happy for the company.  Tell her I sent ya.  And tell her that she doesn't post nearly enough cat pictures.

Dude, where's my goat?

We've been blessed with some much needed spring rains the past week.  Of course, it just so happened to be when my sister and her husband were visiting.  Go figure.  But it just gave Christine an excuse to not do yard work.  Moving sticks, buckets of rocks and "fluffing" the burn pile is hard work.  Not to mention it curtailed her search for the elusive Wabblenuts bird.

Even though the rain put a little bit of a damper on the human activities, it did wonders for bringing out the jungle in the back yard.  I had been putting the goats out there on lines, but obviously not often enough:

I thought I put the goats out here.

Oh, there you are!
New Goat trying to eat her way out of the back yard.

I can only put three goats out in that area at a time otherwise they get tangled up.  Although, even if only one of them were out there she'd manage to make macrame out of the ropes.  In like fifteen seconds.  They will get their lead rope knotted around a twig stuck in the ground and then wind themselves around it four-thousand times until they are left with only six inches of rope.  This is why I cringe when I hear of someone thinking of getting a goat and just staking it out someplace instead of having a fenced area.

When you stake your goats out on a lead, you have to be within sight or hearing distance.  Because they will get tangled in something or end up having it wrapped around their foot.  Or head.  Or horns.  Well, at least mine do. But maybe my goats are just exceptionally stupid.  Or I am for letting them out there in the first place.  It's just that all that lush, green grass is going to waste if they aren't eating it and it drives me nuts just to mow it down.

You know you're an owner of grazing critters when you drive down the road and see the all that "wasted" grass and sob.  The tall grasses on the side of the roads, the lawns surrounding homes, the utility easements and even the state parks.  All that beautiful, green, yummy grass that just gets mowed down.  And every stinking time (much to Paul's annoyance) I say aloud, "Look at all that grass my goats could be eating!!"

Speaking of which, I need to swap out the goats.  Pickles is screaming (imagine that) to be let out of the pen and I think Nettie has stuffed herself with enough clover for now.

PS - Bonnie Williams, you were the winner of my giveaway, please email me your mailing address so I can ship your goodies to you!

Wee-ner!

And the winner of the book and big honk'n bar of chocolate is.....

Drum roll please.......

Bonnie Williams!

Congrats girl!  Shoot me an email at CarolynRenee at centurytel dot net with your mailing address and choice of book and I'll ship your prizes out to you.

Thanks everyone for participating.  These giveaways may not be Publisher's Clearinghouse huge, but they're still fun :)

I read all the nice cat comments to my feline crew and they said, "Thank you".

Well, not really.  Evil Kitty just walked over the keyboard.  Crackers ran underneath the bed, Susan just stared at me and Outside Kitty said "pffffttttthhhhh" or something like that.

Still love 'em though.