Having a Garden with Chickens

Can you have a garden with chickens? Ha! If you have backyard chickens then you know how much they love the garden. Really any dirt and any plant. Chickens love to scratch around looking for bugs and the garden is the perfect spot.  

If you are new to backyard chickens, with a few adjustments you can have a garden with your chickens. We learned will quick that we had to protect our plants.

Benefits of Having Chickens with your Garden 

• They help aerate the soil when scratching around. 
• Eggshells are great to mix in your soil. 
• Chicken Poop makes excellent fertilizer. 
• Control Pests

Downside of Gardening with Chickens

Our Chickens Love Fresh Vegetables. 

The Bearded Rooster has planted a garden every year for the last 20 years (gosh that makes us sound old). He grows tomatoes, peppers, corn, kale, beans, onions, potatoes, squash, and cucumbers plus all sorts of herbs.

The chickens love all of it. 

If you have mulch around your plants, even better. They love something to dig through. Just try raking leaves with your chickens around. 

Pest Control

As mentioned earlier, chickens are great at pest control.

However, they don’t discriminate. They will eat the beneficial insects too.

They will also eat worms, slugs, lizards, snakes, and even mice. If they see a bug on a plant, YUM but more than likely the leaves will go with it. Then, it’s hey! This plant is delicious and before you know it, gone!

Dig and Dust Bathe in any Loose Dirt. 

Chickens love dirt and will dust bathe in any loose dirt they can find. I’ve set up their very own dust bath in their chicken run but they also have a spot by the fence they love. I think the sun hits it just right in the afternoon. We used to plant lettuce there, but now, we don’t plant anything in that area. 

Dust bathing is so good for them. It helps with grooming and apparently is very relaxing. Be sure and check out my blog post for more info.

Chicken Poop 

Chickens poop everywhere and the poop makes great fertilizer but you need to wait to use it.  It’s high in nitrates and if put on plants directly, it will burn them. It’s recommended to compost it for 6 months so your plants don’t burn. 

How Can you Garden with Chickens

Fence off

The obvious is to fence off and not let your chickens in the garden. However if that’s not economically feasible, you can put chicken wire or another type of boundary around your plants. Some people will use poultry or deer netting.

Use Supervision when in the garden area.

Supervising your chickens in the garden will allow them to get some of those tasty bugs while you monitor them. If they are somewhere I don’t want, I’ll chase them away either by trying to catch them or with my rake or another garden tool. 

Raised beds

Chickens will jump up if they find something interesting to eat but hopefully they will stay busy with the extra space underneath the beds. 

Composting

I started composting last year. My bin was too full or too old, not sure which, and the side fell off. The chickens had a hay day scratching around spreading it everywhere. It was located next to the garden, between our shed and the coop. We weren’t growing anything there so I didn’t worry about trying to contain it. 

The Bearded Rooster built me another bin out of scrap material so I’ve started over. This one is much stronger. 

So far in my compost bin, I’ve got chicken poop, some mulch, pine shavings, and leaves. My plan is to pile all summer long then in the fall leave it and not add any more to it. I will turn twice a week to help it break down.

Now, if I leave it in the original bin, I will need a second compost bin!

Some people will spread the compost on the ground once their garden stops producing. When Spring arrives, you’ll be ready to till it in the ground.

Since we have mulch in the run, I inevitably pick some up with the chicken poop. The Bearded Rooster said it’s hard on the tiller so we’ve decided to use it as mulch. We may mix with new mulch..we’ll see how it looks.

We love having the chickens help us with the gardening and they enjoy it just as much. They know if the Bearded Rooster is in there. He will likely find a grub, beetle, or worm they can snack on. 

Before he’s ready to plant each year, he lets the chickens loose in the garden. They can clear an area real quick. Free labor!