How to Build an Instant Chicken Garden

I'm gonna set up an instant chicken garden. I would say for this, 3, 4 chickens if they're going to be in the chicken tractor all the time, like in this situation where we're going to use them to till. This is an amazing chicken tractor, perfect size for a garden bed, 40 inches by 8 feet. It's not too wide to where you can't reach over, it's not too big to where you can't move it. It's got 2 nesting boxes in here. Look, look at that, ready to go. So easy, go from the brooder to that for the rest of their lives. You've got tillers, fertilizers, and eggs all in one. That's crazy. We got a waterer lifted off the ground so they can till. We're going to feed Jonna fed it right on the ground so they'll be encouraged to till. They're going to till and fertilize this area. We're going to put them here for about 2 weeks. Now all we need is some adult chickens. Well, you guys got to work together. There's some in the coop.

You see a better chance with you. Purple guy, chicken is your kid.

There you go, you got it. Good deal. Okay, we got us some killers.

One more chicken in. Sorry if you guys are not friends.

Well, they'll soon be friends, won't they?

Yeah.

All right, that's all we need.

They have to be friends.

Let them be here for 2 weeks. What's today? Thursday. Thursday. 2 weeks. Oh, we Look, she's already eating. They've got 2 nest boxes all to themselves. You guys are gonna be happy. We're gonna need food scraps, we're gonna need rakes. Uh-oh, you hold my hand. A broad fork right where it's supposed to be. We'll see if our lime's where it's supposed to be. I haven't used it in a while. By the way, if you didn't have chickens and you were doing this, you You would put down some blood meal so you wouldn't have no— you wouldn't have any manure. So we got plenty of lime. Do we have any gypsum? I don't think we have gypsum. Can we carry this too, Mr. Brown? Let's see what you guys have done. Well, let's move you out and see what you've done. First step, move the chickens out. Scoot it as far as we can. Good. Hey, look, we got it off there. Look at the job they've done, guys. It's crazy. Now let's scoop this sand back. Try not to walk on that. Do you guys want to rake it while I adjust this? There's a rake right— where is it? There it is. We're raking it to spread the manure out. See how there's a lot of manure right there? Spread that out evenly, okay? And maybe flatten this up. A bit here. Look, they're on fresh grass and loving it, but we need to line it up properly.

Are you gonna plant today?

No, we actually planted 2 weeks ago, remember, Lily? We have some stuff going in the greenhouse, so you want to rake that nice? Look at the fresh green grass already starting to till job. This is after, this is before. So before After. And that's just 2 weeks' time, 3 chickens. Let me just stir it up a little bit. We're just spreading the love. Broadfork. Who wants to help broadfork?

Well, I will.

Let's start at the end. Okay, here. You gonna go that way? Okay, you jump on. I'll jump on one side. Jump on the middle. Maybe it's all we need with your weight. We just wiggle it back and forth. Metal Creatures broadfork. Look, that's gone all the way in. Okay, now you ready for the heavy workout? Get in. 1, 2, 3. Whoa, whoa, whoa! See how this is lifting that up? That's aerating. It'll aerate that soil, hydrate the soil. Let's go back about, what, half a foot, 6 inches? Okay, jump on. Okay, you ready for the ride?

Yeah. Whoa!

We broadforked it. We could, uh, here, since we have an acidic soil, we can just put a little bit of a lime, a little bit of lime, not much. Probably not even a handful. Half a handful. If we have gypsum, we could, uh, put it down because we have clay soil scraps. Why aren't we putting down food scraps? Just food for the worms, encourage the worm activity. Look at the chickens going nuts. Yeah, they wish they were getting this, don't they? Now we've actually harvested compost out of our compost corner up there in our yard. Chickens on deep bedding, on wood chips, eventually turn it into compost. Is that not beautiful? Really nice. We got a beautiful little much here. Probably a little too much for this one. Oh, it is, it is. But we're going to do 9 garden plots. There it is. That took no time. 4 inches. Beauty's gone to get the measuring tape just to make sure we get this right. Good. Did you hold that? This is to prevent weeds from growing up.

So are we gonna cut holes in it and then plant my plants inside?

You'll see. Right now we're just gonna build the garden and we'll plant it in 2 weeks.

Are we gonna put mulch on top or no?

You know what we're gonna put on top? We could totally put wood chips on top of this. Now you need 4 inches of mulch. But Lily, most people can't get wood chips. But what can they get? They have a mower.

Oh, oh no.

What is it? Grass clippings. Actually, our next step would be to wet this down, start the breaking down process. Here, do like— yeah, hold your thumb on it. Now wet down the paper. That will weigh it down, one, until we can get grass clippings on it, and two, it'll start the breaking down process and it'll keep the comp— you know what, we should wet down the compost. There you go. You need about 4 inches. Oh, maybe a third.

Some of this is soaked up hay.

I don't know if you can do too much. You could do a foot because I think it's going to shrink down next. Well, I know it's going to shrink down. Look at what the chickens have done. They have not only tilled, but holy chicken squat, fertilizer. This, no kidding, looked like that. That's the power of chickens. Totally tilled up the sod, no machine required. Next door, 2 weeks ago, this looked like that. We covered it up with— we put— we layered some compost. Oh, look at the life in here. There's some ant life in here. This is some compost. If we dig down, look, it is completely softened. The soil— I'm digging down deeper than that. This is hard, this is hard, but this is soft. It's going to be a pleasure to plant in. This weed barrier is blocking any weeds coming up. So today we're going to build this one just like this but plant this one in here. This is beautiful. While the chickens were doing their work out there We had started seeds in the greenhouse and look, they're ready to transplant. Two things happen at once: the chickens are tilling and prepping while food is growing, and this is ready to go out. And that is the goal today, to get this out into our established garden bed. Sprinkle a little lime down for my acidic soil. So hard rake, spread the holy squat love, and level out our ground. They dug a few holes. It's a little humpy here. Lily, we have some compost under here from our chickens— up from your chickens up there in the yard. Put about 4 inches on. All right, what, 5-10 minutes we did that, Lily? That was not that bad. We're gonna water it down. Seems kind of weird to water it down in the rain, but we're gonna soon cover it. So it needs to be wet. That helps break it down, that helps break down what's underneath it, encourages worm activity. Okay, we have wood chips. Not everybody has wood chips, so we did the first demo in grass clippings. Everybody has grass clippings, and we're just gonna get to compare the two different mulches. So this one we'll do in wood chips. I think it'll take just one hand load. Nice pitchfork. All right, we got it, Lily. Just a thin layer of wood chips since we have the weed barrier. We want it to be easy to plant into. I can tell you right now, the grass clippings are going to be real nice planting into. Time to plant, Lily. Okay, so all of those veggies, all these right here. Yeah, I know, right? I put one in. All right, so we got it planted. It looks really nice. It's amazing how much you can plant in just a small area. It's actually a good day. I mean, you may think I'm crazy out here working in the rain, but the sun's not harsh on this. It's gonna— it's a good light rain. It's gonna minimize the stress from the transplant. Oh my word, mega, mega impressed! We just planted— this is the instant chicken garden miracle right here, guys. Chickens help with this. Oh my word, had chickens here, moved them out, built the garden, transplanted. We're going to be harvesting this today, and look how much is ready. We're going to be weeding a little bit today, but look at all the spinach. That's breakfast, guys. There's a little bit of lunch with this lettuce. There's a little bit of supper. A little bit of grass coming through right there, but no big deal. It's easy to weed in a mulch garden. Oh, it must have come through in between the— where the cracks are in the, the, um, weed paper. Okay, all right, let's get the spinach, my man. First, here are the snippers. Get them. Get, get the outer leaves, okay, because more will come. In the middle.

All right, like this one.

Yep. All right, there's breakfast, Gideon. The beautiful thing about greens like this is, sure, they're small right now, but you harvest from the outside, more will come. You can harvest for even a month or two from some of this stuff. That's a bowl of goodness right there. Oh my word, guys, take my word for it, this is so supple and tender and perfect. Like, you can't even find that at the grocery store. This is going to be absolutely delicious. Look here, hey, that's from the instant chicken garden miracle right there, the, uh, the, the spinach. Well, the eggs are too, really. Hey, look what you're eating there. What? It's spinach.

Right here.

You know where that's from?

Where?

You remember. Eat, eat some. Show us.

It's from my garden.

You are— your garden. We harvested it this morning. Show the folks how you eat it. No, it's not your favorite, is it? But you'll do it. How's that salad? You know where it's from? Here, the Instant Chicken Garden. Yep. It's like 6, 7 weeks ago. Yeah, you started that seed and little bits of bacon bits, a surprise. Yes, delicious. That's crazy. This is fresh food. I picked this this morning with Gideon. That's crazy. He probably liked that, didn't he? Mm-hmm.