Newbie

[OffGridWannaBe]

Hi

Newbie here. It seems like I have been moving too much lately. 5 houses in 7 years. We have now bought so hopefully to stay. Lots of work to be done in the garden. I have an acre. All on a slope. Top lawn is terraced so will stay as lawn. It's a very small patch. A third of it very rocky and full of gum trees. Soil is not great but I know I can make it great again. Unfortunately access is a pain so it's all by hand and wheelbarrow.

So far I have dug 2 small terraces for vegetables. Starting small. Plans for chicken coop and run and planting majority of the land with edible plants and trees or green manure.

Any and all suggestions to improving the soil in an incredibly small budget are most welcome. I have access to horse manure when I can collect it so that will be collected as often as possible to compost.

I plan to eventually be as self reliant from a vegetable point of view as possible. Chickens too soon. But I'm in a suburban area so that's the most I can do for now.

 

[baymule]

Welcome to the forum. Congratulations on purchasing your home and 1 acre. You can grow a LOT of food on 1 acre. Chickens are a great addition to a homestead. If you only have hens, they are fairly quiet and won't rile up the neighbors like a rooster crowing at 3 AM will do! For many years we lived on a small city lot, almost downtown in our little town and I kept hens and gardened. We moved 3 1/2 years ago 160 miles to the Tyler, tx area to be near to our grand children.

These are my suggestions; build a walk-in chicken coop with a dirt floor, large enough for 20-30 hens. Add a good run to it. You are thinking that is a LOT of hens, but when you are raising replacement pullets, there is an overlap for several months. What I used to do was to buy 6 sex link chicks or other breeds, each spring at the feed store. In the Fall, I butchered 6 old layers. So for awhile, I had 18 hens. I kept the hens through their first molt usually at 18 months old, until their 2nd molt at 2 1/2 years old. Then I butchered them. So I had a rotating flock, each spring I got a different color of chick so I knew what breed/color was the old, middle and the new hens. So each Fall, the newest hens would start laying, I had eggs through the winter. The middle aged hens went through their first molt and stopped laying and I slaughtered the oldest hens.

Now for the compost part of having chickens. In the fall, all these nice people rake and bag leaves and set them at the curb for the garbage man. Those leaves are valuable. Pick up all you can and take them home, dump in coop and run, the hens will love them. In a short time, they will reduce them to mere inches in depth, they will scratch them apart and poop all over them. Garden gold! When those leaves are reduced down, add more bags of leaves. I've had leaves up to 3 feet deep before!

I saved all kitchen trimmings except citrus and onions, and tossed them in the coop. What they didn't eat, they made compost out of. Garden trimmings also went to the coop/run. Sweet potato vines, corn shucks, pea hulls, you name it!

This will reduce down to a fine black crumble. I dug mine out a couple of times a year and put on the garden. Sometimes after I scraped it up, the bottom would be a little smelly, I just sprinkled it with garden lime and added more leaves or whatever I had. Sometimes I bought pine shavings (for horse stalls, but not the scented stuff) and sprinkled a layer of those. Your chickens will be a great asset to the garden!

Since you are on a slope, you will want to make sure that water does not run through your coop and run. Wet chicken poop stinks! Plus, you don't want them living in mud, every animal deserves a dry "home" and a place to get out of the weather.

You are wise to start small and build from there. You might want to draw a map of your land and design where to plant fruit trees, berries, grapes, garden, etc. You can always change your mind and move things around.

Most of all, welcome to the forum and have fun on your new adventure. We will have you canning vegetables, chicken and making chicken broth in no time! Start a garden thread, post pictures and we will help you all we can!

You might want to put your general location in your avatar. It helps when you ask for advice on gardens and such. What works for me in Texas might not work for you on a mountain in Montana. LOL

 

[CrealCritter]

Just beware of weed seeds in hay... straw doesn't usually have seeds. But, truth is, I've never used straw - not readily available here.

More great info there FEM. My "trick" is to wait until the weeds seeds germinate then I till them under, mark my rows and sow my seeds. This seems to work well for my summer garden. My sprng/fall garden is completely differnt story though since I've been known to sow seeds right on top of the snow in late winter (carrots can be sowed this way). I leave my row markers in over winter. Then it's a constant battle with weeds in the rows. I cultivate inbeween the rows so that's a cake walk.

I wanted to add, I know all those expert gardeners say clean up all the dead veggie plants at the end of the season and remove from the garden. I say blah... I use my weed whacker with a steel blade instead of string and chop up the plants and leave them there for a few days then come back and shallowly till them in. Corn for example has a lot of plant in comparison to the ear or two you pick. By chopping up the plants it does wonders for amending the soil for the next year. Plus birds and other animals can scavange the leftovers during the winter. every animal turd helps amend the soil also.

 

[Hinotori]

I've used straw to build up the level in the chicken pens. I toss it in chunks and the birds spread it for me looking for seeds. Without using chickens to help, it won't compost quickly into good soil.

You can never add enough organic matter into bad rocky soil. I use lots of chicken litter. Squash doesn't mind the fresh stuff and grows huge in it. Most plants need litter to be composted

 

[OffGridWannaBe]

I'm in Souh Africa. Summer rainfall area. Temps are fairly mild but can be a bit chilly in Spring when it's damp (like now it's alternating between damp and icy or hot). I used to have 5 hens and a rooster (mixture of breeds and sizes) about 3 years ago but with the constant moving we had to rehome them onto a farm where they were free to run as much as they wanted. We don't have much access to a variety of chicken breeds here so i have 2 Lohmann hens for now and plan to increase it to about 10 or 12. Not sure on the roosters. Our neighbours are pretty close on both sides and one is a bit petty. Half of my acre is not useable for food or hens and husband wants to keep his lawn but plenty to do with the remaining half.

Most people employ a garden service to remove garden refuse and they like to keep their leaves and whatnot but I do scavenge what I can when I can.

I have been trying to figure out how to home my hens. They have a temporary coop for now. Tractor or permanent run. Leaning towards a permanent run simply because of the way the land lies and I'm doing this on my own and dragging a tractor up a steep slope does not sound fun to me.
I also want to have meat chickens at some point. Trying to figure out the best way to manage both types of chicken. I've read that they don't always do too well together in the same coop? Was thinking one massive run with a dividing fence and 2 coops (which is actually a biggish one divided)
We also have LOTS of predator birds. They have grabbed things off our front lawn just a few meters from our front door. Also lots of snakes. And monkeys. Who terrorise us and destroy the garden. So the entire veg garden needs to be covered to protect the veg from being decimated.

I also work as a nanny and homeschool so I am very busy!

I'm on the lookout for someone who has rabbits as a pet who would be willing to collect their manure for me to add to the garden.

My veg beds started as a rocky hill. I have dug out 2 terraces. Dug out mostly because raising them made it too high to contain easily. I then removed as much of the rock then filled with old cardboard and branches we cut back. We shredded a lot and added that too. Collected a fair amount of topsoil from my parents renovating their property and added that. Then lots of leaves which they collected too. Trying to shore up the sides of my veg bed with old buckets which I have drilled drainage holes into and will plant with herbs and flowers like nasturtiums.

The rest of the ground I will just be slowly trying to improve.

 

[sumi]

I'm originally from South Africa! Grew up in Rustenburg and then moved around a bit before settling in the Klein Karoo on a farm. I emigrated to Ireland just over 3 years ago. Where in S.A. do you live?

Chicken-wise I'd recommend Boschvelders: The Boschveld Chicken - Everything You Need To Knowhttps://chickenfarmingspot.com/the-characteristics-of-the-boschveld-chicken/ A friend of mine had a large flock of them and I had a pair myself. They are hardy, good layers, nice temperaments and they don't want to be spoiled or pampered, which makes them easy to keep. They are great confined as well as free ranging and they are so pretty! They come in nearly every colour or variety of colours you can think of.

 

[Chic Rustler]

Hello and welcome. Theres alot of good stuff in this thread already.
In my limited experience the best bang for the buck (in my opinion) when it comes to gardening is raised beds filled with homemade compost.

Back to eden/lasana garden is a good long term approach for soil building and has worked well for me as well.

 

[CrealCritter]

Welcome!


I have chickens also-- and I was amazed to see how much the roosters add to the general health and well-being of the hens. I always thought they just had one job, lol.

True... Unless it's my wife's rhoad island red / buff orpengton crossed rooster. That boy is rough on the girls. I tried to put him in the pot but my wife got mad "he's so pretty". So do I make my wife mad or do I leave him be? Well momma didn't raise no fool... He's still roaming around today. Poor girls, back of their necks are bald.

 

[CrealCritter]

Hi

Newbie here. It seems like I have been moving too much lately. 5 houses in 7 years. We have now bought so hopefully to stay. Lots of work to be done in the garden. I have an acre. All on a slope. Top lawn is terraced so will stay as lawn. It's a very small patch. A third of it very rocky and full of gum trees. Soil is not great but I know I can make it great again. Unfortunately access is a pain so it's all by hand and wheelbarrow.

So far I have dug 2 small terraces for vegetables. Starting small. Plans for chicken coop and run and planting majority of the land with edible plants and trees or green manure.

Any and all suggestions to improving the soil in an incredibly small budget are most welcome. I have access to horse manure when I can collect it so that will be collected as often as possible to compost.

I plan to eventually be as self reliant from a vegetable point of view as possible. Chickens too soon. But I'm in a suburban area so that's the most I can do for now.

Welcome - your gonna learn so much here that your head might explode! Seriously everyone on here is eager to share their knowlege and experience. And it ain't like Google either, you get real advise that works and not someone's opinion that may or may not work. The members here are outstanding!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Always have been, lol!