Free-Range Chicken Gardens: How to Create a Beautiful, Chicken-Friendly Yard by Jessi Bloom

Author:Jessi Bloom [Bloom, Jessi]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781604692372
Amazon: 1604692375
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: 2012-01-23T05:00:00+00:00

tip

As an alternative to using fabrics as a weed barrier, I recommend sheet mulching with a material like newspaper or cardboard under mulch, which helps inhibit weed growth until it decomposes naturally.

A daisy grows in an eco-lawn.

White Dutch clover.

Lawn

Lawn is easily the most controversial element in the landscape and garden industry. Turf is heavily dependent on natural resources like fresh water and fossil fuels to keep it at its perfect 2- to 3-inch height year round. In the quest for the perfect lawn, homeowners annually dump millions of pounds of polluting fertilizers and pesticides to keep the grass weed free and perfectly green. While lawn is often an unnecessary element in many gardens, it is actually an important design element to consider for a garden with free-range chickens.

Chickens and organically maintained lawns will have a good symbiotic relationship if they are managed well. Chickens graze on the grass blades as a choice food source for greens, which can also be collected and dried for food. Chickens will keep the lawn mowed, so to speak, because they will make the lawn a frequent stop in their daily foraging. Chickens will search out and eat insects in lawns, and leave behind their manure, which is an excellent fertilizer for lawns. The height of your lawn is critical: the blades need to be long enough to photosynthesize in order to be healthy and grow—3 inches is ideal; and chickens prefer a certain height of grass blade—5 to 6 inches is too tall for them to graze, and letting them graze below 2 inches can damage the grass. So for chicken foraging, it is best to keep your lawn about 3 to 4 inches, which may be a bit longer than you are used to cutting it, but the turf will be healthier and withstand the chicken’s grazing better.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.