trial and (lots of) error

I once had a dream of having chickens and a beautiful flower garden.

At this point, as I write this post, I see the dream of having both slowly fade away. 

Fading away a little more each day.

Every day I find my flowers have been eaten, leaves have been shredded, roots have been dug up, dirt has been scattered and dreams have been shattered.

I should have known, though. This is what chickens do. They scratch and dig and want a little taste of everything in their sight.

But still.

Now, I have to get creative. And well, I don't want to be creative. I mean, I already have to plan out what and where things need to go. Why do I have to also think about how it is planted?

We've already come up with one solution: a container garden.

Instead of planting in the ground, plant in a container. Those darn hens won't be able to scratch up the roots or to take a dust bath. I now despise dust baths, by the way.

So, that solves the digging up of flowers, but what about the eating of flowers? Most people would probably research which plants chickens do not like.

Well, I am not one of those people.

It's trial and error for me.

Plus, I just don't spend a lot of money on plants that I buy.


Chewed up black eyed susan
 

And you know, in theory, it's nice to say it doesn't bother me because I didn't spend a lot of it, but, in reality, it does still suck to see my blacked eyed susan all chewed up. After all, I did spend time planting that thing and most importantly, I had a vision of a beautiful vine spreading across the chicken coop.

See there chickens, you are ruining your own home.

So I am going to get tough. I am going to keep you out one way or another.


Ha!

No leaves for you!
 

And just when you think you have the one up with container gardens and hardware cloth, you come to see that those containers do not actually save your plants from becoming a meal for the chickens.

My poor decimated flowers...

I will not accept defeat! I will put this thing on a chair!


Ha!

And it's not weird having a chair in the middle of the garden, right? 

There are other tricks that I have seen and tried:

You can place rocks around your plants.

And so far a success!

I've also placed chicken wire under mulch, which keeps the chickens from scratching my mulch onto the pavement, which is one thing I CANNOT STAND! I've had the thought of slaughtering a chicken or two after seeing the destruction they do spreading all kinds of mulch around where mulch does not belong.

Spread all over the damn driveway.

To help with this problem, I just placed chicken wire along the edges of the garden so they don't scratch close to the pavement and spread it everywhere. Just turn the edges of the chicken wire into the dirt, stake it down, cover it up and and watch your chickens scratch everywhere but here.

Chickens now dig everywhere else...I'll take it!

And through all this, I have discovered one plant that chickens don't seem to be interested in at all...

Mums.


Thank goodness the mums are safe!
 

I have lots of mums out there for fall and not one has been touched.

Trial and error.

And you would think that the chickens would love it out in the vegetable garden.

There is an abundance of fresh dirt. There is an abundance of things to nibble. There is an abundance of BUGS.

It would be a feast for the chickens, and we actually want those chickens in the garden to take care of all the pests.

Look at those stink bugs everywhere!
 

Unfortunately, our chickens have absolutely no interest in the vegetable garden.

There is an invisible line in the yard that the chickens refuse to cross. I don’t know how they define this line but it is there, and they will not cross it. Not without pure force. And it is absolute hell getting a chicken to do what they do not want to do.

We tried walking with them (since they like to follow us) and luring them with bread, but these were all failed attempts. We had to physically take them to the garden.

After eventually catching three (because that was all we could stand to do) and probably causing those three some PTSD, we thought they would surely love it out here since they have all kinds of bugs to feast on, and then surely the other chickens would follow them over to this new paradise.

Wrong.

Thechickens hated it. It was like we put them in some type of torture chamber.
 

See the chickens. See the stink bug. See no chickens going after the stink bug.

After hiding in the overgrown bean bushes and not eating a damn thing, the chickens eventually ran out of the garden as soon as our backs were turned.

They found their way back to their coop, and I guess never, ever thought about the garden again, except maybe to warn the others to never, ever go to that hell. Not one has ever attempted to get to this wonderful bug paradise since then. And yet they wander about scratching and searching for bugs in parts they are not wanted, in complete oblivion to this garden of (bug) Eden.

One day. One day we will figure it all out…