How to Integrate Your Backyard Flock Into Orchards and Row Crops

  Put your flock back to work!

This was a lesson I learned years ago when I first became interested in growing my own garden At a potluck with friends in Oregon I was blown away by my friend’s tomatoes

I asked her: “What’s your secret?”

“Chickens!” she said

As it turned out, she was using a backyard-scale crop rotation that incorporated her laying hens, occasionally allowing them to graze her garden beds, add fertility, eat bugs, scratch up the soil, and eat seeds I realized that this integration was something I needed to try myself

My poultry experience began soon after, with

Letting The Girls Do The Work

Opening a box of just delivered peeping baby chicks is an exciting spring event Perhaps not as dramatic but just as fascinating is dropping bean, squash, corn, lettuce, and many other garden seeds in moist spring soil Both chicks and seeds promise delicious future food
About the time those spring chickens start laying, the summer garden is fading and tired as fall’s days shorten Then comes one of the least exciting of garden chores Dried vines, leaves, stems, tomato cages, and row markers need to be carted off to tidy up the space to rest for next