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RE: Gardening: Compost for the Cabin Terrace Garden Beds
We found that the most efficient way to make compost is to let the chickens do the work. The chickens lived on our garden plot for a while and we gave them chopped leaves about 6" to 12" deep. The worms come up to the top of the soil and each hen will make a hole down through the mulch to find them. As they scratch for worms the hole migrates around the garden and they turning and mixing the leaves. A foot of chopped leaves turned into about 4" of rich topsoil in less than a year. We just moved the fence for the chicken yard over to a new spot and started over the next year. Our soil is sticky red clay.
Thanks, that's a great idea with the chickens - I have been making plans for eventually getting a few egg laying hens, and have thought about laying a thick layer of bedding to eventually compost and replace, but I didn't consider the arrival of the worms. Moving the fencing around to rehabilitate different parts of the property is a good plan too. The clay's like cement after baking in the sun. I have to give the wild strawberries in their strawberry patch credit, I didn't add much top soil when I put that garden in last summer and when I went to transplant more into the garden this spring the ground was hard as a rock lol, much work to do on the soil.
Our winter in Virginia is mild enough so that the chickens don't need a fully enclosed house. The chicken house is on wheels and has a mesh bottom so that I don't have to clean it out, just wheel it to a new spot periodically.
My sister is a farmer. She says that chickens are like the gateway drug to animal husbandry.