Have you ever dreamed of growing and eating delicious vegetables from your own garden, but become discouraged by the thought of all the digging, weeding and other work involved? Perhaps you could harness poultry power to get your gardening done – avoiding the need for machinery, the use of fossil fuel, ugly noises, exhaust fumes or hard labour. You could even use a “chicken tractor” to do the work for you.
Harnessing animal power
Traditional farmers the world over combine crop growing with animal production in sustainable farm eco-systems. Animal power is harnessed, as opposed to the petro-chemicals and machinery of modern systems. As well as the usual draught and pack animals, pigs have long been used to help with forest management in Europe. Ducks have been the traditional clearers of rice residue, weeds and pests from the Asian paddy fields since time immemorial.
More recently the permaculture methods originated by Australia’s Bill Mollison and David Holmgren include using a “chicken tractor” to till the soil between crops. Fowl will intensively plough up crop residues, fertilise and clear the soil for next season’s seeds, if rotated through a series of yards. However if you leave them in there too long, they will compact and pollute the ground and then you will have to dig.
The mobile ‘tractor’ coop
An intensive tractoring system for a small scale, fowl can be kept in a bottomless mobile pen that is placed over vegetable plots after harvest. This pen should protect birds from predators and bad weather. With proper management it will provide them with fresh ground to scratch, where worm and pest numbers don’t have a chance to build up. It should be small, light and sturdy enough to be moved by one or two people regularly.
Perhaps once a week or fortnight, depending on pen size and bird numbers, you move the coop on to the next plot, then plant out the old one. This way you will be able to have a succession of fresh vegetables at all times. If you had, say, twelve plots for weekly rotation the whole cycle would take three months to complete, time enough for most crops to mature. And it all could fit easily into a good sized backyard.
If you are looking for the best breed of fowl scratchers to employ, I would recommend the Aracauna – a South American breed that lays blue and green shelled eggs. Whichever breed you choose – bantams would probably be better suited than standard sized birds, whose greater weight will only speed up soil compaction.
Soil preparation
In the plot just scratched over you will need to spread a few soil improving additives. A light sprinkle of wood ash or lime will help manure break down. You may need to rake it in to loosen the soil. The addition of worm castings and a sprinkle of powdered rock, basalt dust being the best type, can also be very good for enhancing biological activity and mineral levels. Fowl like to eat the largest particles in the dust which will also act as a grit to help them with digestion.
Try to avoid walking on the prepared bed, by keeping to defined pathways from where you can reach out to all your plants.
Planting techniques
When it’s time to replant or seed a plot there are various techniques to use. You might have seedlings ready to plant into a mulched over plot. A good blanket of straw mulch will keep soil micro-organisms happy. It also prevents run-off and erosion from occuring. However in winter time a mulch layer will slow down the warming of the soil. Many people prefer to plant into bare soil at this time.
If you are seeding direct into the plot you could scratch some furrows into the bare soil or through the mulch layer to sow seed into. Potatoes can be very easily planted in a no-dig style. Place them under the mulch layer and keep plants regularly topped up with extra mulch. They will produce big, beautiful crops this way and the spuds are easily harvested by hand. Why dig spuds when you can avoid it?
The permaculture plot
If you want to follow the permaculture model it’s a good idea to mix up your plantings. Having a diversity of crops growing together helps to deter pests and diseases. It also reduces losses if bad weather causes havoc. Ancient South American farmers would plant up to 50 varieties of potato in one garden. This way the potatoes suited to the prevailing weather conditions would thrive, ensuring farmer survival in a harsh climate. In Ireland it was a reliance on just one main variety (the ‘Apple’) that resulted in total crop failure and the terrible famine when potato blight struck in the 1840s.
There are also benefits in growing a mix of plants that are deep and shallow rooted, light and shade loving. For example you can shelter lettuce and parsley from harsh sun under more heat tolerant plants.
Use companion planting techniques and grow a succession of vegetables with combinations of fast and slow growing plants. And scatter some fast growing Chinese vegetables (the various Brassicas, wong bok cabbag etc) amongst your potatoes, or beetroot plants, these make good companions. Alternate between heavy or light feeding plants.
Plant ‘stacking’ will maximise your vertical space. Such intensive growing methods of polyculture have been practised in Central America for thousands of years, with corn, beans and squash (or pumpkin) always grown together.
Multi-purpose herbs
Fowl love to self-medicate on a variety of medicinal and insecticidal herbs. Many such herbs are also very beneficial if planted amongst vegetables, however as they are generally perennial, you may have to cage those individual plants when fowl are ‘tractoring’. Or keep wire netting permanently around plants and allow the plant to grow through it. A quarterly pruning by birds will leave it healthy and compact.
Comfrey is a great perennial forage herb which can provide highly nutritious young leaves for your salads and top forage for fowl. Southernwood is another useful herb with insecticidal properties that will help protect fowl from pests and cabbages and fruit trees from moths. A border of yarrow plants will benefit most vegetables and other herbs. It does not mind being trampled by fowl for a short spell. Sage benefits beans, peas, carrots and cabbage.
Your life will never be the same after you have employed some good hard working fowl in the garden and started eating the freshest, most nutritious, naturally grown food. A relaxing, productive environment, with all the fascination that fowl bring, could be just the antidote to the rat race! Every backyard can become a little permaculture paradise this way.