STARTING an INSTANT chicken GARDEN

How to set up an instant chicken garden. Many of you guys are having a sense of urgency for growing your own food like never before, and you want something that you can plant now. It's like spring, it's still cold, but you also want something that fast. So today in the vlog, I'm going to set up an Instant Garden small. A lot of you guys don't have a lot of space, so we're going to do this small, 40 inches by 8 foot. That's the garden. I'm wanting to set that up this morning just to begin the demo. Beauty planted some seeds for me yesterday. Now it's time to get chickens set up, prepping a garden area. Good morning, my man. You want to help me? Will you get a scoop of feed for these guys? Sure. Thank you. I've got to get this chicken tractor out of there and over to where we could have a garden. Looks like Grandma donated some food scraps. I don't need this. I'm doing this for demo, doing this for love for you guys, to show you guys what's possible. We do this kind of thing on a much bigger scale, but I'm going to show you it can totally be scaled down. Hopefully Donald doesn't get saucy. Tough behind that, aren't you? That's our guard goose, he's doing his job. Okay, here, hand me the— he gets a little ornery in the spring during mating season. Hey, would you grab some greens real quick from Donald? Might as well grab them right there where we need to mow. Do you just want to go under the fence? Would you give him a bit more, please? He loves it. Thank you, thank you. You're so helpful. Can you really not get out? Come on, I'm afraid to turn my back. There we go, there we go. Okay, will you grab the pig board? We might— you might need to spot me while I get this tractor out of here. I think our best bet is to lift up this corner and we can get out under here. Just eat your greens, dude. Be happy.

Can I go do my chickens?

Yeah, I think that'd be good if you just help me get out. We gotta get Penguin out. Come here, come here, you little girl. Come here, little Penguin. We call her Penguin because, well, she walks like a penguin. All right, Josiah, if you'll come lift this corner, we're gonna get in here. We got our corner back.

Why isn't Teddy going to the bathroom? Can you, can you have him stay out here with you?

No, honey, I did your chores. You can at least do that, honey.

He's not going to the bathroom.

These guys can't be coopless, so we'll get them my A-frame. We haven't used this as a tractor in a while, so I have a cable somewhere to hook onto these hooks. Well, there's supposed to be a hook on this side too. See the O-hooks? Yeah, and you can hook your cable on either side and easily pull this around your yard. This is a little, uh, shut gate. Oh look, mucho huevos. All right.

You're gonna have to drag it out the whole way.

I sure am.

Where are you putting it?

I'll put it in the backyard there.

Hey, Papa, if anybody wanted to just farm with this, they could. A few chickens, a small garden. You could put a pig port in here.

I just realized this would be a great spot. Wonderful backyard. We could have more than one. Just get one ready, moving on to the next. But look, big problem— it's lower right here than down there. So really, we need to get a grader to come in and grade this for us. Probably not the best spot for a demo, demo garden this year. What do you think about up there? That's like our front yard. Okay, so we drive through here sometimes, so we could do it along the back, like right here, that way. We want to do a complete rotation. We have 9 plots, and by the time they are on the 9th and done, they can come back to the very first one, start all over. We could see if we have room there. If not there, right here. Okay, one starting right here, going down. That's a cool thing about this little garden. It's a cool way to raise chickens. You don't need any fences. It's all in one. You can put chicks out on there, keep them in the brooder at night, and then you put your chicks out during the day. All right, grab my camera, Jonah.

We had to modify this with a door.

Do you know where our cable is? This would be a lot easier. What do you think, Jonah? You could even bring it down more because technically this is a path right here. I believe that would be a garden path. Would it be better to be right here with the slope? I don't know if this is sloped right here. You have a hair more room.

It's not slow.

That's right, you just want to be done, don't you? Oh, I know what you could you do while I'm messing around with this? You're not into this too much. Could you go get me a waterer out of the brooder stall? That's it. Something to set on. You can get a scoop here. Get a scoop of food. We're gonna just put it directly on the ground so they'll till. You don't need a tray or anything.

Yes.

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. If you're going to keep it just as a coop, I've made a door for it. You can, uh, put 12 in here and then you have a Premier 110. I think this is better actually. I might pull it up a little bit more. We'll still have this road and then we'll actually have access into here, say mower to come get grass clippings or something, and we can do one garden spot here And then when we're done, we can go on down. I like it. I like it a lot. Come on, look at you guys. Everybody crawl in the bed with Mama. Is everybody crawled in the bed with Mama, huh? Yeah, everybody got in the bed. All your mighty men, Beck, save me. We've got all my boys in the bed with me. Yep. Except Teddy. Except Teddy. And Papa. Let's go, boys! Burning daylight. So we need some chickens for our instant chicken garden miracle. I got an idea. There are 2, 3 chickens from this flock getting out. That's probably one of them, huh? They were darker birds if I remember. Let's turn that problem into solution and put the escapees in the chicken tractor. Meanwhile, in the compost corner, we had enough bedding to create another pile. Got another pile going, and very soon— I got the supplies yesterday— we're gonna start harvesting that compost. Look at all that compost, guys. Those chickens make it in no time. We want to start it all our new material in here so it heats up. The chickens don't scratch it, and it heats up and it kills all the seeds, any pathogens, those kinds of things. And then we let the chickens have at it. All right, it's 20 till 8. I believe Jonah's getting our water. That's it. Is it that easy? It's that easy. 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. Oh, it's just 20 minutes. Hopefully we can get them a temporary coop. Here it is, our A-frame. Actually, Jonah's micro shaw would work. Well, no, it doesn't have any nest boxes. This is major overkill for what, 3, 4 chickens and a goose? We're gonna eventually build another Chickshaw mini-me. But until then, that's gonna have to do. We gotta get the tractor out of the way. Ah, it was left on. Say it again.

Is this chain too loose?

Looks too loose. What do you think?

I think it's fine.

I don't know the rule of thumb on that.

I heard that— I heard it on, uh, Homestead Rescue.

What'd they say?

Uh, a penny be able to fit in there.

Penny?

Yep.

Like big ways?

Yep.

Like that much? Well then it's good. All right, um, can you help me move this? How do we get this thing We need to drag this out. This is very heavy. Let's get— yeah, it is. Let's get these out. Let's get these out of the way. We need to drag this out sideways, turn it, then drop it down, and then it should be easy to go. Hey, did you set up water in the chick— in the chicken tractor?

Yes.

Thanks. Did you set it up on something to get off the ground?

But I put it down straw hill.

I'll get here, you get on that corner, and we'll, we'll get Jimmy in. If you push it there once, I'll push it here. Ready? You just want to try to pull it? 1, 2, 3.

What am I near Sally?

1, 2, 3. Okay, this is not working. Oh, what?

All we gotta do is flip it. And then it'll go.

I'm afraid it'll put too much weight on this wheel.

There's no other way we got it in here.

Wow, shoot. How'd it get in here? That trailer wasn't in here.

Want to get the trailer out?

I hope it doesn't come to that. Might have to.

I don't see any other way to Gird up our loins.

Ready? Did you come— 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. We're getting it inch by inch. Just a little more, Jonah, and we can turn it to We can twist that around and drop it. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. Twisting. Ready? I think we can set it down now. Now guys, once it hits its wheels, it might want to slide back. Twist it over a little bit more. Ow! That hit me in the head. Oh, that didn't help my already existing headache. All right.

The wheel's off!

We missing a bolt? I guess so. I'm collapsing the fence in. Come on, come on, penguin. And now we can put the A-frame here and then lift the fence over. What do you think?

I think it'll work.

Look at that, perfect.

Yes, surfing!

That bring back memories?

We play on this thing forever.

Our old coop.

We made it our man cave when we got back from the trip.

You did. There's y'all's new coop till we can get you a mini— a mini me, Donald. Let's give you one less stress, okay? I'm gonna give you water. Let me show you the final setup here and we'll get started with our day.

What's the coop for?

The chicken tractor? We're gonna show the people how to make an instant garden using chickens. Heck, we're going to show you how to do it if you don't have chickens. Similar concept.

That one's easier without chickens.

It's easier, but, uh, the chickens— you don't get the fertilizer. Yeah, you don't get the till job, so you got to do a real good job with your mulching. All right, well, let's show them. Let's show them. So we're ready to go. Josiah, I want you to collect the eggs this morning and switch out our bedding, okay? And then we will truly be ready to go. We got a waterer lifted off the ground. So they can till. We're going to feed— Jonah 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.

Now they're going to break out. They'll be out about 12.

Okay, you got a net or something to catch them with, or you just want to gird up your loins and chase them down?

Um, I caught these ones yesterday.

Hey, everybody wants to hear you say, I'm gonna gird up my loins.

Yeah, I'm gonna guard up my lines.

I like it. Where are y'all going? Oh, thank you. Y'all get the cows, I'll get the cow stuff and hopefully get in. So all we lack in that is a couple chickens. We'll catch them later. It's so easy. It's so easy and so productive. Eggs, tilling, fertilizer. Come on. I'll be honest, one reason I like Mr. Brown to come is if he stays in there, he's going to terrorize his mother and the house. Mr. Brown! Mr. Brown! Mr. Brown can moo, can you? Yeah! I think you ought to try. You coming with him? No. He can make thunder boom boom boom. Mr. Brown can whisper like a soft soft butterfly. All the wonderful sounds Mr. Brown can do.

Can you?

Can you?

Alright, come on. Let's go. No, I don't want to go. Please? Come on. I want you guys to stop Legos and come with me. You'll get dollar bills. If you help me at the bank.

The boys are getting something good, so like a toy. Can I get something?

Oh, now they're picking up. Like what?

A Queen of McDonald's Lego?

Okay, with your money?

Yeah, yeah, I already have $14.

What would you want to get?

A minifigure.

You can get stuff when you work, you know that. You're making that connection, right? You want a Darth Vader?

It's $22. Darth Vader Castle.

A Darth Vader Castle?

Yeah, Darth Vader's Castle. I think he said he'd get—

that's probably expensive.

That's like $100.

You don't have $100, but you can earn the $100 by working. Come on. Really? Good job, it works! What about Flossie? She go down the road too?

What?

Did Flossie go down the road too? You're ready and I'm not. Call the Inquirer.

Papa?

Yes? Are you going like that?

Yeah, have you had a snack? Is this sweater weather?

No, probably not for you. You don't seem to mind. I'm gonna wear a sweater because I need the extra support in the morning. I'm not a morning person, although I've been going to bed earlier, by 9:30, getting up at 5:30. I've been liking that actually. I've been getting up early, no distractions. Been working on the summit that's coming up. I'm gonna teach you guys how to grow your own grow your own groceries. Next week, including this bit. This is me setting the Instant Garden up, but I'm going to teach you how to do that step by step all the way through. Hey, I will. Could you say please?

Could you say please?

All right, so anyway, you guys can sign up for that summit even if you're seeing this after the summit. It's going to be there, it's going to be there, but it would be fun to get in there when it first releases. Check out the summit down in the description. I'll teach you how to grow your own chicken and veggies within 60 days. That's fast. Yes?

Ham— Moo Hamburger got out. He jumped out of the fence again.

Okay, but did he nurse?

Some.

Okay, is he controlled now?

Yes.

Okay, why do you think he jumped out of the fence?

Because it's on.

I guarantee it's not on hot.

I turned it on.

Did you test it?

Not yet.

Oh, well, we'll test it in a minute.

He jumped over and he didn't touch it when he landed, or he didn't touch it.

What? He completely jumped the fence.

He touched it with his belly in midair, but he landed it without touching.

We got problems.

Maybe shooting problems.

We don't want veal, we want him a good 118. We want him a good 18 months old. You know where my other bucket is? Here it is. What I want you to do is go test that fence. Tired? I don't think they even like to jump it if it's hot. I think they're scared. They can sense it. Look at this guy.

I know, he's just in love with me.

He don't leave your side, does he?

He does.

He's a good— he would just love to be inside with you all day. Oh, he was upset yesterday, you being out.

Yeah, but I think he got over that.

He did. You got over that, didn't you? And he wanted to come right back in then.

He did. Well, he stayed with me for a couple hours.

3.

It's only hitting at 3. Okay, that's our problem. It's rubbing somewhere.

I think I heard it.

Okay, we gotta find it, honey. It's gotta get— it's gotta be hitting at least at 9 on a rainy day. 10+ on a warm day. Hey, listen, he's— it's— it may be too late. He may already be in a horrible habit. We gotta nip this in the bud because otherwise you're gonna be having to bring him in every single night. Oh, look, 2 more eggs from our cows. You boys gonna get this for a minute? Okay, I'm gonna step aside. Just right there, right inside the greenhouse. I've got to create— I'm creating a special video for you guys. It's on how to grow your own groceries in 60 days. We're going to talk about the 5 different things you could do to grow food really fast. It's just going to be an overview on some of the different things. I guess I could give you guys a sample of what I'm going to talk about. Like, you would want to grow fast-growing crops like spinach, lettuce, and there's a kale in here too somewhere, all like ready, ready to go, like within within 60 days, within 2 months, within 8 weeks, y'all. That's crazy. That's just one of the 5 tips. I'm gonna find a good spot for that. Be cool to have this. See, that looks nice. How could we rig that up? It's low, you can't see the, the plants. Attach it right there. Oh, that looks good, right? Does that look good, Lily? People are wanting to grow more of their own food. Actually surveyed you guys recently, and you want to grow up to— most of you want to grow 50% of your food. Hey, can we do Do something with him so he's not whining.

I can bring him into the greenhouse.

Did you take him in the greenhouse? Go get him and get him in there. We're gonna bring him in the greenhouse. The videos are always better with cute little girls and cute little puppies, right? Stand back up on the bucket where everybody can see you guys. Okay, there we go. In this video, I'm gonna give you 5 ideas for growing your own groceries. All right, they've heard enough from me. You want to tell them?

What?

Check out the— what have I been talking about?

Growing food.

Tell them they can find out more about doing that down in the description. Okay, I'm not quite done. I'm gonna come check you.

I'm just gonna go.

Let's check it. You guys got done? How much did you get?

More than enough.

More than enough. Whoa, you did it! You guys did it! Holy smokes! How's— how are your plants?

We're doing great.

Day 2 hardening off. Day 3. So how long are you gonna keep them out?

Um, maybe like 6 hours.

Okay. Where are the seeds you planted for me yesterday?

Right here.

Goodness, can you believe that? Like, what you can fit in a 40-inch by 8-foot garden bed?

It's crazy.

That's crazy.

Well, it's more than what you asked for because I did.

Well, some of them aren't going to germinate. Yeah, the duds.

But I think I like soil blocks better.

Do you? Okay, why are you looking at me like that? You did it. I know, and you liked it better.

I think I like it better. Wow, I get more on a tray.

Well, that's fine.

Okay, maybe I did this, but yeah, I kind of— I think I just like it better. You see, like I did these in jars because I wanted them to—

yeah. It doesn't look dry to me. Let's queue up the next cow for them and then we'll finish this video. I did the narration, now I just need to get the B-roll shots, the background shots. Wow, what'd you do, lay in a big fat turd? Can everybody say ew? It's rarely like this, so they usually have enough fresh grass that they don't have to lay in their poop. I don't know what she did. Okay, you guys got this. Thank you, guys. I'm gonna go get the B-roll. I don't think this one will take as long. In my 4x8 raised bed, you can raise 72 spinach 32— is it 32? 32 Swiss chard, 32 kale, 32 lettuce. The beautiful one planted a tray of Swiss chard, spinach, kale— 2, took 2 trays of spinach, kale, and lettuce. Chickens are prepping the garden bed. And if you don't have chickens, just skip the chicken part. Maybe if you could buy some blood meal, sprinkle it over the area for a little bit of nitrogen. Also in the summit links to all these resources, guys. The chicken tractor, plans for the garden bed. All right, okay guys, that's a wrap. Boy, it doesn't take him long to jump. He's already gone. He's already gone. What y'all doing? You trying to get to pee?

Well, he came up to me. I was, I was doing some work in the kids' room.

Okay.

And he came up to me and was like kind of— not didn't like bite at me, but just kind of grabbed my hand, kind of like to get my attention. So I was like, well, maybe this is what he needs.

Arun's back at it. Let me see. Arun cleaned out our stalls to create that compost pile. Let's see how this is. Excellent, excellent. Good job. Perfect. We'll put some wood shavings down in there. Those are cow eggs, Earn. Have you ever had a cow egg? No, I just see the cow. You ready? Yeah. Okay. Good morning. What do you got, Johnny? You find any spots? You finding some? Good. I realized I just need to put you guys on the chore list. Just spend some time with you so you don't get half wild.

You have a problem? You know what place to check? The one that I disconnected, right?

Okay. Yeah. Did you— you want to test it now? It's hitting that 10K. Incredible job, ladies. Incredible job. Oh, that's chicken from the broth. Oh my, 7.4. It's good.

I'd ride them, but they would go running, try to that bush, and I'll go—

You found more, uh, cow eggs? Yeah, 3 more. Okay, thanks. Look at there, bacon! Bacon and eggs from the land. Pigs for everyone! Pigs for everyone! I'm done with the vlog, Becky. You gonna check it?

Yes.

Do we have any rogue chickens out? Well, that's kind of backfiring. Should we go and get some out now or wait till after supper to see if some—

After supper.

Yeah. But hey, y'all seed shopping? Rebecca's collection. Oh yeah. Did you see any chickens out? No. Okay, I guess that's a good and a bad thing. Rebecca, look what came in the mail today.

I know, I'm very excited about this.

If people didn't think you were the crazy stainless steel lady yet, this confirms it.

What is this? It's a floss holder.

This is a—

the other ones were glass, but if you dropped it, it just shattered everywhere.

So now I'm just saying no to plastic.

Yeah, it comes with—

and then it comes with fillers. And it's bamboo floss.

Well, I buy the bamboo. Yeah, it's just less waste.

And it's— wait, activated charcoal floss. We just keep on going down that rabbit hole, don't we? Years ago we threw out conventional milk for, uh, organic milk, and now here we are buying stainless steel floss containers. Just charcoal floss.

Just 17 years ago. See how crazy you get?

Is this what you got? Well, yeah, I don't know if we're gonna plant all this. Let's grab some.

Oh yeah, and then, and two, like, if you guys need to start something, it depends on what Jonah can build. Okay.

Oh hey, you want some eggs? Yeah, milk. Sure, your bonus, buddy. I like this. That's the perk of working on a farm. And, uh, let me get you chicken. Oh sure. Hey, the one day I wanted some chickens to get out, they didn't get out. Oh, look, look, look, he's pooping! Oh, is that his peeing position? Good job. Fuss over him when he's done. I don't think he's gonna get kicked by goose. So there's one right there. We got a huge compost going. We're starting to harvest this. Harun harvested a bunch of this today, put it on our bed. Are we gonna catch these birds or what? Oh, is he chewing on the— oh my, oh boy. I'd really like to get one of these pretty ones. Well, you guys got to work together. There's some in the coop.

He sees a better chance with you.

I hope.

Purple foot chicken did your kid.

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

Sorry if you guys are not friends.

Well, they'll soon be friends, won't they? All right, that's all we need. Let them be here for 2 weeks. What's today? Thursday. 2 weeks. Oh look, she's already eating.

And no more.

Like, they've got 2 nest boxes. All of them themselves. You guys are gonna be happy.

See ya.