Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Carrie Shepard <carrieshepard@yahoo.com>]

Hi Elizabeth,

 

I think you misunderstood a tiny bit in that it's not exactly FOR the chickens, but rather following permaculture design ideas that forced me to think about layers of growth allowing for more things growing and shelter for bugs and birds. one fringe benefit is the additional forage material and shelter for the poultry.

 

 The more levels you have of growth, the soil below becomes a richer source of food for the chickens.   In one small triangle in my front yard for example 7 years ago there was only 1 crepe myrtle, a poplar, and a maple tree.  Now, the area is almost totally filled in with: a good sized currant bush, a long line of daffodils planted with daylillies, crocus, vinca, mint, 4 o'clocks, sunflowers that reseed a few each year, hollyhocks, a moonflower, a sedum, and a small holly and a tree that I honestly don't know what it is, but my aunt gave it to me, I planted it and it was happy there and grew.  Oh, there's also a new shrub that a friend gave me but I don't know what it is or if it is going to live well there.  The soil in that triangle used to be red clay and hard as a brick in the summer.  Now it's black, full of earthworms, and easy to stick a shovel in all year long.    It was only recently that I became aware of how much more alive the soil is there.

Along the fenceline of the orchard, I've begun planting things like irises, sweet flowering almond, flowering quince, a grape vine and I also grow a few things like sweet potatoes, onions, green beans on a teepee, gourds along the fence itself, cherry bushes, and hazelnut bushes.  I've got a few wisterias also and one I'm training to go up into a poplar.   I've been planting garlic bulbs by my rose bushes (of which I only have 4 doing well right now) and just generally planting something to fill niches of space that I notice are empty of layers of plant and animal life.

 

I'm currently trying to root a flat of sage cuttings to increase the numbers of herb plants on our place and hope to get more crops like radishes and fennel established in areas of improved soil from my increasing the naturally accumulating carbon from dropping leaves and wild bird shelter habitat.   I guess as I write, I realize that Fukuoka's one straw revolution is another source of influence to my planting everywhere.   I forgot to prune the grapes this year, so I may get busy and get that done asap and try to root some of those cuttings to add to the mix in the front yard also.

 

hope this helps,

Carrie

 

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