Many gardeners fear chickens will peck away at their landscape, and chicken lovers often shy away from gardening for the same reason. But you can keep chickens and have a beautiful garden, too! Fresh eggs aren't the only benefit — chickens can actually help your garden grow and thrive, even as your garden does the same for your chickens.
In this essential handbook, award-winning garden designer Jessi Bloom covers everything a gardener needs to know, including chicken-keeping basics, simple garden plans to get you started, tips on attractive fencing options, the best plants and plants to avoid, and step-by-step instructions for getting your chicken garden up and running.
For anyone who wants a fabulous garden where colorful chickens happily roam, Free-Range Chicken Gardens is the guide that will bring the dream home to roost.
If your garden fantasies involve chickens, Jessi Bloom, author of FREE-RANGE CHICKEN GARDENS: How to Create a Beautiful, Chicken-Friendly Yard (Timber Press, paper, $19.95), is here to make those dreams come true. Chickens bring out interesting characters. My new heroine is Elizabeth Zumwalt, a chicken whisperer, educator and entrepreneur who blogs about her family’s Bantam hens, sells eggs and gives half the proceeds to charity. She pulls a red wagon, topped with a chicken house, when she heads out to educate people about her birds. Elizabeth is 9 years old.
By the time you’re done with Bloom’s clever book, you’ll know almost as much about chickens as Elizabeth does. And maybe more about what chickens like than what your children do. You’ll be looking for bug logs and creating dust baths. You’ll know that chickens like to have mirrors hanging in their gardens — but take care with the angle, since they have eyes on the sides of their heads. There is no end to the vanity of a chicken.
“Experienced free-ranging chickens” — now that’s a real sign of the times; do chickens no longer have a tribal memory of roaming? — will know not to eat toxic berries, but Bloom is an expert guide for the untutored. Somehow, I’m sure that chickens prefer heirloom vegetables to any other variety. And while your flock may break free to cross the road, you’ll be relieved to learn that (unless they have an unfortunate encounter with a car) they’ll probably be no worse for the wear. Chickens don’t sweat.
Bloom genially celebrates geodesic domes and shingled coops with stone chimneys and even clean-lined modernist coops. She also writes about “naughty” chickens: “Chickens are social and hormonal creatures, and when we have them living in ways that are different from how they would live naturally, they are prone to behaviors that can be damaging to themselves or that are simply normal but just catch us off guard.” You might have thought she was talking about teenagers, but I now see that they’re easier to raise than chickens. I’m thinking . . . roast chicken with that rosemary?
— Dominique Browning
"Essential guide that will bring your dream home to roost."
If your garden fantasies involve chickens, Jessi Bloom, author of FREE-RANGE CHICKEN GARDENS: How to Create a Beautiful, Chicken-Friendly Yard (Timber Press, paper, $19.95), is here to make those dreams come true. Chickens bring out interesting characters. My new heroine is Elizabeth Zumwalt, a chicken whisperer, educator and entrepreneur who blogs about her family’s Bantam hens, sells eggs and gives half the proceeds to charity. She pulls a red wagon, topped with a chicken house, when she heads out to educate people about her birds. Elizabeth is 9 years old.
By the time you’re done with Bloom’s clever book, you’ll know almost as much about chickens as Elizabeth does. And maybe more about what chickens like than what your children do. You’ll be looking for bug logs and creating dust baths. You’ll know that chickens like to have mirrors hanging in their gardens — but take care with the angle, since they have eyes on the sides of their heads. There is no end to the vanity of a chicken.
“Experienced free-ranging chickens” — now that’s a real sign of the times; do chickens no longer have a tribal memory of roaming? — will know not to eat toxic berries, but Bloom is an expert guide for the untutored. Somehow, I’m sure that chickens prefer heirloom vegetables to any other variety. And while your flock may break free to cross the road, you’ll be relieved to learn that (unless they have an unfortunate encounter with a car) they’ll probably be no worse for the wear. Chickens don’t sweat.
Bloom genially celebrates geodesic domes and shingled coops with stone chimneys and even clean-lined modernist coops. She also writes about “naughty” chickens: “Chickens are social and hormonal creatures, and when we have them living in ways that are different from how they would live naturally, they are prone to behaviors that can be damaging to themselves or that are simply normal but just catch us off guard.” You might have thought she was talking about teenagers, but I now see that they’re easier to raise than chickens. I’m thinking . . . roast chicken with that rosemary?
"This well-thought-out and thoroughly comprehensive new book covers the topic so efficiently and completely that it is bound to become the gardener's go -to reference when chickens are the focus."
introduction: 6
1 chickens and gardens-working together: 10
Incorporating Chickens into Your Garden
Chickens and Sustainability
Chickens and Your Lifestyle
Being a Good Neighbor
Seasonal Considerations
2 chickens in your garden: practical considerations: 36
Benefits of Free-Range Chickens
Keeping Your Plants Safe
Keeping Your Chickens Safe
Chicken Training and Acclimation
3 designing a chicken-friendly garden: 60
Creating a Plan
The Chicken Infrastructure
Other Permanent Elements
Choosing the Right Plants
Extra Elements for the Chickens
Sample Garden Plans
4 landscape materials for chicken gardens: 92
Hardscape
Softscape
5 plants with purpose: 112
Plants for Chicken Gardens
Food and Forage
Medicinal Plants
Poisonous Plants
Chicken-Resistant Plants
Colorful Seasonal Plants
Native Plants
Plants for Fragrance
Plants as Noise Barrier
6 innovative chicken housing: 146
Space Requirements
Mobile, Modular, or Stationary Coop?
Coop Necessities
Interior Design
Optional Items - Chicken Coop Style
Materials
Greenhouse Chicken Coop
Tractors and Arks
Geodesic Chicken Dome
Broody Box or Sin Bin
7 friends and foes of hens in the garden: 178
Predators and Pests
Predator Control and Deterrents
Other Garden Fowl
Livestock
Poultry Diseases and Parasites
Troubleshooting Common Chicken Problems
Injury in the Garden
When a Chicken Dies
afterword: 203
conversions and hardiness zones: 204
resources: 206
acknowledgments: 209
photo credits: 211
index: 212
Narey
Posted May 8, 2012
I just spent a long time perusing this book in the bookstore. It's beautiful and very informative. I've ordered a copy, and cannot wait to receive it. We live in a very small city, with a very small yard, and this lovely book has so many tips and bits of information as well as entertainment, not to mention being filled with wonderful pictures. I had wondered just how to arrange my gardens now that the hens have de~greened the whole thing, and I have lots of ideas to explore now! Highly recommeded!
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Overview
Many gardeners fear chickens will peck away at their landscape, and chicken lovers often shy away from gardening for the same reason. But you can keep chickens and have a beautiful garden, too! Fresh eggs aren't the only benefit — chickens can actually help your garden grow and thrive, even as your garden does the same for your chickens.
In this essential handbook, award-winning garden designer Jessi Bloom covers everything a gardener needs to know, including chicken-keeping ...