Chickens and the clover patch

My small back yard lawn/pasture has taken hold. It is a mix of grass and clover, with a few various weeds. It took a while for the clover and the grass to get going and I kept the chickens out of the area until it was well enough established to bounce back from their foraging. The area is a small island of green in a mostly bare spot that used to hold a big pile of dead ivy that I'd pulled from the huge amounts of ivy growing in the back yard. Once the ivy pile was truly dead, I used it as a cover for cardboard and newspaper that I used to cover other areas of ivy. The newspaper and cardboard over ivy approached worked quite well. Cutting, pulling, and digging ivy is quite a chore. And with that area bare I decided a small, green meadow/pasture/lawn type space would be nice. And it is nice.
I moved the chicken fencing to allow them access to a portion of the clover lawn/pasture. They moved in to explore and have been eating the clover and grass. I bring them treats from the garden, fallen peaches, seed spikes from salvias - which they peck and scratch at to get to the black seeds, and sometimes a tomato hornworm or a cricket. Egg production has slowed some with the onset of hotter weather.

Rooster in the clover lawn/pasture

The clover has begun flowering and attracts bees and even hummingbirds. The clover takes well to mowing and grows very quickly after. It is fixing nitrogen in a spot that seemed depleted when we got the place, and it is serving wildlife, livestock, and the humans in this system well.

Chicken food

Chickens eating walnuts.

These chickens have well adapted to their new, larger range. I've made a very large yard for them to use for foraging and whatnot. I bought a few rolls of black plastic fencing, which is very light weight and easy to maneuver. Their area now includes a space underneath  some small trees that had collected lots of leaf litter for them to dig into. They can also dig around under some shrubs and young olive trees. Since these chickens are not particularly large, they don't seem to do too much damage to the trees. In fact, they are keeping the grass down around the trees, and foiling any pest build up. On occasion I'll let them out of that area and they inevitably head over toward the house and the granite patio. I'll let them hang out around the house for awhile and then lure them back to their own fenced area by cracking walnuts with brick. They know what the sound of walnut shells breaking sounds like, and they make haste to get to the spot where I crack the nuts. They love to eat walnuts, and do so with a real fervor.
Walnuts have lots of that healthy, omega 3 fat in them, so I'm thinking that will make the eggs omega eggs.

The eggs are coming two days on and one day off, from chicken number 1 at this point. Chicken number 2 looks like she's getting ready to start laying (her bottom is starting to get larger).

I am enjoying the chickens much more, now that we have grown more accustomed to each other, and I love that the hen eats bugs and walnuts and other things I don't like to eat, and then makes eggs out of them. The rooster has grown into a beautiful, bird, glossy black feathers shine green in the light. His ruff and tail feathers are fantastic.

I can see how important it is to have animals in a Permaculture situation, they offer so much as labor and as food. They keep weeds down, create food with their eggs, and break pest cycles. They also make fertilizer for the garden. The coop litter (straw and wood shavings) will mix with all their crap and become a wonderful addition to a compost pile.

Fall Gardening

The temperatures were in the 80s this weekend, a little warm for the chickens so I put the mister on to cool down their yard, but not too hot for me to move a pile of old ivy and sticks. This pile was created  out of branches and pieces of cut ivy. I piled and piled and finally I decided the pile wasn't doing much but making a comfortable home for a few mice. We get such little rain here that it would take so very long for that pile to break down. I had tried planting squash to grow upon it, but the rodents chewed through the squash plants, killing them.


Old ivy on top of new...

I've been saving up cardboard boxes and flattening them for use as ivy suppressors. There is still so much ivy, even though a huge pile has been pulled out. I've put down cardboard in a large area, spreading out a little at a time. I finally had a critical mass of cardboard and laid it down on top of the ivy, then I took the pieces of the pile—sticks and dried out ivy mostly—and spread that on top of the cardboard. Geoff Lawton of the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia says that a forest grows on a fallen forest and so my food forest will have plenty of organic matter to build upon and grow into.

With the pile gone, there is a rather large space, maybe 30ft by 30ft (I've yet to measure it), that is ready for a garden. I am thinking about making a small lawn in the middle, upon which to lounge, and then make the edges into a chicken-friendly pasture. At the back end of the space is a very old almond tree and some old lilacs, at the base of which I am thinking of planting lavender, keeping it pretty drought-friendly. Beyond those trees is the chicken house and yards, with a small foot path connecting the spaces.

At one edge is a group of trees that has been acquired as scaffolding for a large grape vine. The wild birds love to come and eat the grapes when they ripen, creating a cacophony of bird song and various bird arguments. At the parallel edge is an island of ivy with a mature cypress tree and some old fence posts covered in ivy that haven't been taken down yet. Still lots of ivy remains. And at the other end, is the entrance from the decomposed granite patio, where much outdoor time is spent, and also a male American Persimmon which had been coppiced many years ago and how has several long trunks. The grape has made its way from another almond, which resides next to the fruitless Persimmon, into the Persimmon. Once the pasture is installed, it should feel like a nice meadow in a ring of various trees. It will require summer irrigation and I am looking at tall fescue for the more refined lawn area, as it has lower water requirements than many grasses. Plants suitable for chicken forage will go in the rougher area.

I was somewhat surprised at my desire for a small lawn in the backyard. I've been spending time and energy removing the lawn in the front yard and replacing it with various useful plants. We've lounged around on the remaining front lawn in the summer, and it is rather pleasant, save for all the dog walkers and other people who can tend to take a look at whatever we're doing. Our street also gets some maniac drivers who roar down the 25 mph street at 45 mph, or even faster. That makes our little cat nervous, and us nervous about our cat. The shrubs will grow up taller in a few years, but I am not interested in having an audience when I'm hanging out in my gardening clothes and having a refreshing beverage. So I feel that a small lawn/pasture area will make a nice lounging setting that is more private, and have a more pleasant feel for the people and the cat. It will also provide a nice forage area for the chickens.

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Nicotiana tabacum 'Havana'

This year I grew some tobacco plants, just to see what the plants looked like. Tobacco has a long history with humankind and I am interested in plants that people have found or do find useful. The plants made very large, sticky leaves, which smelled of tobacco, and they bloomed with these long pink flowers at the tops of 3-4 ft plants (in partial shade). They are the prettiest plants in the garden bed they're in, and they brighten up our fall evenings.