Charging up the Permaculture Garden

El Nino and Global Climate Change have given us a warm winter and boosted recent temperatures into the 50s and 60s. Christmas felt more like Easter.  We have put the balmy winter to use by keeping our hens out on pasture later than in any year to date.  It's a Hawk's Hill record.  This morning, we moved the hens to their winter quarters in the barn because I wanted to make sure that they got a chance to eat the weed seeds, bugs and grass that had grown up in our permaculture garden -- the fenced yard behind the barn -- and to give them time to recharge the garden with their manure.

The hens' winter run behind their barn enclosure.  The chicken tractor is parked for the winter behind their yard.

For those of you who are not familiar with permaculture, it's a radically different take on farming that tries to emulate nature, reduce labor inputs, and maintain optimal harvests while eschewing pesticides and building organic matter in the soil.  Chickens make great permaculture partners, as free soil workers.  This morning, the hens took to the work with their characteristic excitement at landing on fresh pasture.  Contented clucking and enthusiastic scratching through detritus was interrupted with low chuckling when one hen unearthed a worm or bug and gobbled it down before another bird could snatch it away. The day was filled with the thrill of such little discoveries for the ladies.

Our little bio-tillers show up for work.

One permaculture principle is to plant your gardens near where you live and travel every day so you can keep an eye on them.   Last summer, I noticed how I walked to the barn for chicken feed every day, right past a nicely fenced, fertilized patch in open sun.  It was a "Duh!" moment.  Summers find us stretched to the limit for hands to weed and harvest our gardens, and last year, we added two new potato patches to the farm while one of our helpers -- our daughter Kate -- left for a month to study in Japan.  Still, I couldn't help but make use of a plot of earth that would otherwise just fill up with weeds.

I planted Kentucky Wonder pole beans, Vilms paste tomatoes, Tromboncino squashes and Green Apple Cucumbers along the fence, added Benning's Green Tint patty pan squash and Howden Pumpkins to the center of the plot.  Finally, I tucked in a single sunflower my friend Mary gave me for Mother's Day.

The garden's water source.

The hens' winter quarters in the permaculture garden.

I mulched around the squashes with old hay and leaves to keep the produce off the ground and to reduce weeds.  Of course, grasses and lambs quarters grew up in the space alongside the food plants, so the plot wasn't picture perfect.  I watered occasionally, filling a large bucket (blue one in the photo) set in a wagon, with water from the rain-barrel bathtub around the corner.  My goal was to spend no time weeding and just a little time watering.



And it worked.  The plot produced a lot of food -- bushels of squashes and more pole beans than I could harvest.  We picked pumpkins for Halloween decorations, squash blossoms for frying, and tasty plum tomatoes just to eat out of hand.  I still have a couple of tomatoes in my kitchen that I found just before the first frosty night, and several long, curled Tromboncino squashes flop out of their bushel boxes, waiting to be roasted in the oven like Butternut Squash.

What made it work?  The hens' efforts over last winter scratched the land clean of weeds while adding their fertilizer to hay I laid out over the snow for them.  We grew plants vertically to keep them off of the ground and to aid in my watering efforts.  I could haul my water wagon around the outside of the plot, pouring water from a bucket or watering can at the base of the fence and water the majority of the plants' root area.  Super fast and simple.  As I passed by the fence, I could check quickly for squash bugs on the climbing Tromboncino squashes or Mexican bean beetles on the pole beans.  I spent less than 10 minutes a day on average tending the plot after the original planting was done.

The girls excitedly cleaning up the permaculture garden.

Now the hens are back to their work tending the permaculture plot, tearing up some leaves I tossed in the enclosure this autumn, fertilizing, eating insects, cleaning up weed seeds, scratching the grass roots out and tilling all the organic matter back into the earth to prepare for next summer's permaculture garden.  The only question is what to plant next year?  A Three Sisters garden of corn, pole beans and squash would work, but good gardening practices require rotating new crops in for a 3 year cycle.
Potatoes would be out, because any leftover spuds could poison the hens in the winter (chickens can't eat raw potato skins).  Onions and garlic must grow undisturbed over the winter, so they would be out.

A grain like wheat or oats would work, as would dried beans, lentils or field corn.  Sunflowers grown for seeds would be a good choice, and the seeds that fell on the ground would feed the hens when they arrive next December to clean up.  Melons would favor the fertile soil in a wet year.  Peppers & eggplants seem a little fussy to take the weed onslaught, but could be grown with enough mulching.  Cherry tomatoes on the fence would be ideal.  But for the best crop rotation, a cover crop of daikons in the spring would break through the clay soil layer and pull up minerals from the subsoil, followed by summer cabbages would be the best move.  I can imagine rows of fat cabbages lined up where the hens now scratch and peck.  The way I farm, it's likely to be slightly less organized and more serendipitous.

The best part of the permaculture garden for me is feeling in partnership with nature and my little flock of hens in tending this earth patch that I am lucky enough to call home.

Wishing you all a New Year abundant with nature's blessings!
Betsy

Ducking back into the barn to lay an egg.

If you are interested in reading more about permaculture, my favorite book of late is The Resilient Farm and Homestead by Ben Falk, but there are plenty of books, sites and videos out there.  This is the perfect time of year to start making plans for your garden and homestead.