Chicken Proof Garden Bed

I am working hard on my goal of having a productive farm. I was doing a self-reflection to dig deeper on this goal of having a productive farm. I was pondering what does having a productive farm mean to me. I came up with 3 bullet points. It means that I have fruits, vegetables, herbs, and meat year round that was produced on this farm that I can use to feed my family. In my mind a productive farm also means that I can basically eat for free or almost free the food we produce for our family. Lastly, a productive farm would be one that I can automatize or create systems to decrease the labor that we have to do to run the farm. Those 3 ideas of a productive farm are still in the beginning stages of being refined and placed into practice. 

I am daily tending to our garden and farm animals which is the heart of having a productive farm. I feel like the 30 minutes or 3 things routine is becoming more of an automatic habit in my daily schedule. I do it everyday in the mornings. I am weeding for 30 minutes daily and using those weeds to feed the pigs. As I feed all the farm animals I observe them to see if they are in good health and are eating properly. I harvest daily since we are in our peak production days. I plant daily. Today I planted lettuce in a container near my back door. I hope by planting lettuce in a container I can keep it moist and it is shadier in that area, so I can combat the summer extreme heat.

Because of the triple digit weather and the drought I am adding watering daily into my schedule. I am watering a different part of the pasture or garden daily. I have a watering schedule routine set up so that the main pastures and gardens get watered. The only difficult part to the watering is that I am physically moving 2 inch water hoses and 6 foot tall sprinklers daily into new locations. I feel like a fireman with a water hose flung over my shoulder. I am sure I don't look like a fireman. I am a 50 plus year old woman with a large boots trodding through the yard trying not to pass out from exhaustion. It takes time to move them. But without this watering, all of our garden and pastures would be dried up and brown. We depend on the pastures and garden to feed our farm animals and ourselves.

I have been planting a little bit daily and have finally finished a garden bed near my patio. I decided to cover that newly planted garden bed with a 16 foot cattle panel to deter the backyard chickens from scratching up all the seeds I worked hard on putting into the ground. I put a brick under each corner of the cattle panel to get it off the ground and to make it a bit more difficult for the chickens to scratch around. Hopefully it will be difficult and discourage them from spending time in that area of the yard. 

Chicken Proof Garden Bed

Chicken Proof Plant Container

I understand that we will have some garden losses because of the backyard chickens and I plant extra to accommodate for that, but I feel like I need to chicken proof some of the garden to mitigate the losses.

May we all make progress in our gardens today and everyday in order to feed ourselves.