MY GARDEN IS FINALLY COMPLETE for $107!! Gardening with chickens and Growing your own feed

May 08, 2018

MY GARDEN IS FINALLY COMPLETE for $107!! Gardening with chickens and Growing your own feed

5-8-2018
MY GARDEN IS FINALLY COMPLETE!! Gardening with chickens and Growing your own feed!

I have been planning this for the past few months but the crazy Oklahoma weather has prevented it from happening. As soon as it would dry up and get warmer, next day it would freeze and rain for 3 days!! So, here we are, April 23rd and it just might be safe to start and plant.

You know how they say it takes a village to raise a kid? Well, its the same mentality to get things done around your homestead. There are just things "I CANNOT PHYSICALLY DO" without help. There is no way that I could have used a flat shovel to dig down beneath the Bermuda grass to scrape off the top layer, especially on this undeveloped area that has never been dug before.So we call in Iron Kross Excavating for a little help!! So I have a great neighbor with an excavating company who was sweet enough to scrape that layer for me in a 12 x 20 Rectangle.

Gardening with chickens and Growing your own chicken feed, What to feed your chickens

I went to Lowe's to get my Fence posts and fence wiring. There was so much to choose from. You can spend so much money creating a garden to look like its out of a book, but my mission was to be neat, clean and functional. I also needed to make sure to keep my free ranging chickens away and out of it. Although this garden is for them, us humans will be getting the left overs.

Before I put up our fence, I needed to work the earth. I do not have a rototiller so my other sweet neighbor had this for me to use. It was a single hand held tiller. It was mighty but would not penetrate the soil. We had to call in the big guns!

A friend of mine had a larger tiller that we went and picked up. It was huge and heavy. I wanted to do it myself but Babylove wouldn't let me, something about "...you can loose a foot" or something. Look at him! Worked all day and went to pick up and drop off this tiller and worked it for me! I love it when he WORKS IT for me! OK back to gardening...He tilled the whole garden for me and went over it twice. We picked the deepest level which I believe was 6 1/4" deep. He had it done in no time.

We placed the posts at 5 foot spacing and secured the metal fencing. I have seen some people use aluminum metal post wire or zip ties, I used aluminum wire that is twisted tight to stay in place.

I had this wall divider panel built when I had my Polish pen in a 10 x 10 dog run. It was like 2 separate rooms for them. It didn't work the way I planned so I have had this frame sitting around waiting to be re purposed. It was a great Idea. I re stapled all the chicken wire on it and made it tight and secure to keep the girls out. I planted the string beans and yellow wax beans by it to allow them to vine on the wire.

I let the girls come eat the white grubs and worms before I planted.

I planted 2 Roma and 6 Better Boy tomato plants. That should be enough for us! I remember when I was little, when people grew way to many tomatoes, they put them in small brown paper lunch bags and when anyone came over or if they came buy, we were always blessed with fresh tomatoes!!

I planted 4 different color peppers this year. I am excited the most about the dark purple variety! I also got yellow, orange and green. I am a sucker for stuffed peppers!! I cant wait! My mouth is salivating!! On the right side of the cattle fence, I planted 4 cucumber plants. That fencing is very strong and should support the vegetables like a champ.

In the back I planted 2 rows of sweet corn. I left room on the other fence side for watermelon and pumpkins. I think I am going to do 2 crops this year of each. An early and a late season. I hope to have so many pumpkins that my front porch and walkway are full of festive Halloween and Thanksgiving decoration!!

Ruger Roo Roo really thought he was helping, walking around smelling everything. Isn't he cute? I have left plenty of room for the rest of my crops. I will be planting Swiss Chard, Cabbage, lettuce and going to try Cauliflower. I only have the seeds and I will be starting them indoors, so I am excited about the greens! I also have purchased COMFREY which is sprouting, that's a whole other story we can talk about in a future blog, I think your going to love the Bocking 14 variety!! I will continue to create gardening for chicken's blogs as it progresses to help share what is producing, thriving or not and what is most liked by my backyard gals!!