My good friend Michele over at Sign of the Shovel and GardenRant asked me how on earth I keep the chickens from destroying the garden. I thought this was a blog-worthy topic, so here you go:
- Forget about annuals. Anything that self-sows is history. The girls love to scratch in the dirt, and when they do that, they uproot tiny seedlings and probably even eat some seeds. The bright side? They do the same thing to weeds.
- Fence off the food crops. If you love it, so do they. Fortunately, a silly little 18-in tall wire fence works just fine. Chickens are not very adventurous, and when I’ve put the girls into the vegetable patch just for fun, they have completely freaked out and tried to escape, ignoring the salad bar before them.
- Brand new plants might get accidentally dug up. Fence off a newly-planted area or fashion a little cage of chicken wire and cover new plants for a few weeks while they put down roots.
- Don’t plant anything poisonous, like monkshood, foxglove, oleander, etc.
- Remember that different chickens have different tastes. One might develop a taste for your geraniums, while others leave it alone. In my garden, I’ve found some nibbles on heather, geraniums, yarrow (but just a few plants–not all of them) and Maximilian sunflower.
- On the plus side, my girls love snails and slugs. So I’m gradually moving all the plants that snails eat to the part of the garden they have access to. Hello, dahlia!
- So what does grow in the chicken garden? Plenty. Here’s what grows in the part of the garden where my chickens free-range:
Lamb’s ear
Catmint
Yarrow (especially the silvery "moonshine" varieties)
Anenome
Artichoke
Salvia
Perennial herbs, including rosemary, oregano, thyme, sage
Shasta daisies
Phlomis
Hellebore
Lady’s mantle
Roses
Artemisia
Butterfly bush
Alstroemeria
Feverfew