“Anyone who isn’t thinking about growing their own food hasn’t been paying attention.” – Maine farmer, c 2018

The first things to think about when planning to make a garden are location, a water source, an electric fence, and fertility. I’m going to address fertility. You can buy bags of fertilizer at the garden store, but that’s a short-term solution which does nothing for improving the soil, and the price is skyrocketing as global supply chains break down and the NPK ingredients become increasingly difficult to produce or access. (This is just one of many reasons why there is concern about food security.)

Here in Haines, we are incredibly lucky to have entrepreneurs who are producing compost and fertilizer for us out of locally abundant materials (fish waste, sawdust, food waste).

Besides that, making your own fertilizer isn’t hard: get chickens.

There are lots of ways to fit chickens into the garden scheme. Many people have a setup where the chickens have a moveable coop on the lawn; they mow the grass, eat bugs and do their own fertilizing. You move the coop every few days so they get fresh grass. Or you can have them prepare a garden area for you to use next year– just have their run where you want the garden and leave them there for the summer.

Move it next year to where you’d like them to prepare yet another bed. Works great, the ultimate no-dig gardening. Just don’t forget the electric fence.

My own system involves a deep- litter bed in a permanent house with a yard. The lower walls are rot-resistant and there are high sills for the doors so the litter can build up. Put in a good deep base of sawdust. All winter the hens will leave their droppings on it and mix it around; add more sawdust from time to time as it seems necessary.

By spring it will be composted and ready to use, or you can stack it and let it work a bit longer. I dig it into the soil, or put it on top around existing plants, or use it to replace the bottom third or so of the dirt in flowerpots and vegetable beds.

You can also add it to your compost pile in the garden, which requires a nitrogen source like this in order to get going quickly and efficiently. Meanwhile the chickens are doing their thing, eating all your kitchen scraps, grass clippings, and everything else you can think of to feed them, and producing eggs and meat for you.

And, your garden will love it.

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