volaille keeping continues to grow in popularity class after year — for a variety of reason . Most of you probably raise chicken for the delicious clean eggs or mayhap for the heart , but a flock of backyard wimp can provide you with tons more benefit than that — especially if you ’re a nurseryman . Instead of using chemical - laden commercial plant food and plant life intellectual nourishment , you may put your chicken manure , eggshells and even chicken feather to use in the garden to ameliorate and improve your ground course and render your garden the nutrient it want to help plants grow and flourish .
scrap from your kitchen that would otherwise end up in the trash bank identification number or compost spile can also help your garden filth . The good your soil and the more suited for planting , the unripened leaves and more exuberant blooms you will get . That lead to a more fat plant and more vegetables and fruit for your kin to exhaust . So making indisputable your garden soil include the proper nutrients is vital to get a successful garden . Of course , all these items can simply be add to your compost atomic reactor , but because they each possess some really not bad nutrients for specific place , you could blob apply them to your garden where they are most needed .
Here are my eight preferred natural ( as well as inexpensive and easy ) ways to get my garden ready for spring planting .
1. Banana Peels
Banana peels are extremely high in potassium and also contain sulfur , magnesium and morning star , take a crap them a howling all - around plant food . hack up some peel and put them around the base of your veggie flora to serve with root development , increase the rosiness on your flowering works and boost your fruit yield . Chickens generally do n’t corrode banana peel anyway , so instead of lay them in your chicken treat pailful , next metre use them in the garden .
2. Chicken Feathers
Chicken feathers are extremely plentiful in N . During the fall slough time of year when all your chickens drop their feathers like unbalanced so they can uprise in new I for winter , take in the feathering from around the coop and run and spread out them over your garden plots .
The feathers will slowly break up down over the winter and by spring lend some nice nitrogen to the territory , which is necessary for gullible leaves and provides nutrient for your flora . Leafy greens such as Spinacia oleracea , kale , Brassica oleracea italica , boodle and Swiss chard especially apprize high nitrogen level in the soil .
3. Chicken Manure
Animal manure makes some of thebest fertilizerfor your garden , and chicken manure is one of the best types of manure . It ’s highly eminent in nitrogen , though , and therefore “ hot . ” It will sunburn plants if you apply the fresh chicken manure directly to them , so admit it to age for three to six months before applying it to seedlings or acquire plants .
Spreading manure over your garden in late fall gives it time to age and the nitrogen to scatter before the bound planting season . This aging period also gives any pathogen in the manure time to be kill by sunlight or extreme temperatures , reducing the chance of salmonella or E. coli pollution .
Chicken manure is not only high in atomic number 7 , it ’s high-pitched in calcium than the manure from other animals such as cows , horse or sheep , so your calcium - have a go at it industrial plant — include Lycopersicon esculentum , cucumber , melons and capsicum pepper plant — will do good from being “ fed ” chicken manure . Amazingly , one chicken will produce about 11⁄2 to 2 pounds of manure a workweek .
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4. Coffee Grounds
Do n’t throw out those coffee tree flat coat ! They contain nitrogen , potassium and daystar , ready them an excellent general fertilizer for your plants when you sprinkle them around the base of your seedlings or work them into the filth prior to planting . Coffee priming coat also help activate and increase the drainage of your garden soil .
crawler love coffee grounds , too , so sparge them in your garden will make the worms happy . Chickens should n’t eat coffee grounds , however , so if you let your chicken wander around your garden , bury the grounds .
5. Eggshells
Save those eggshells , too . If you normally feed vanquish shell to your chickens for the supplemental atomic number 20 that hens need to make their own warm shell , coiffure some away to apply in your garden .
Adding some crush eggshells to the hole when you plant tomatoes , peppers and other vegetable that involve high atomic number 20 levels helps preclude blossom ending rot by put up them the added calcium they crave . Sprinkling some eggshells around the stems of your plant will also work to deter slugs and ameliorate soil drainage .
6. Epsom Salt
Epsom common salt is extremely high in Mg , which help cum germination and helps boost the engrossment of other nutrients . Mixing some Epsom salts into your garden soil when you dig the holes to engraft your seeds will assist them sprout and should improve your germination rate .
Diluting the Epsom salt with water and spraying the mix onto plant leaves issue in green leaf , bushier plants and more peak . Epson salt also improves the soil for crops such as tomatoes and white pepper , which like the magnesium .
7. Seafood Shells
put away your discarded shrimp , lobster and other seafood shells into the garden adds nitrogen , calcium and phosphorus to the soil . Shells also append good chitin and other trace ingredient . Adding shells will make acidic soil slightly more alkaline , which is more conducive to grow vegetables .
The shells will break down better if they are chopped or crushed first , and it ’s best to bury them late into the land so you do n’t pull in scavengers such as raccoon , rats or other wild animals .
8. Wood Ash
If you have a Natalie Wood cooking stove or flame pit , saving the chill ashes and scattering them on your garden will help neutralize acidic soil much like farming quicklime does . Depending on the case of Natalie Wood you are burning , Ellen Price Wood ash also can contain high levels of Ca , magnesium , atomic number 19 and phosphorus , which are all beneficial to a garden . Again , the atomic number 20 - loving industrial plant such as bean , Brassica oleracea italica , cauliflower , peas , spinach and tomatoes will take account a bit of wood ash tree sprinkled around and then worked into the dirt with a rip . One thing to note though : Wood ash tree can burn young , tender plants , so it ’s best to apply the ash tree to the garden before you start to embed your seedlings and rake it in well .
Using these few natural grime amendments helps nourish and fertilise your garden , which will direct to inviolable , sizeable industrial plant and a more bountiful harvest .
So next time you ’re on your way to the chicken cage , trash bin or compost pile , cerebrate about whether what you ’re tossing out might help feed your garden directly . You ’ll not only salve money you would have spent on commercial fertilizer and plant food , you ’ll facilitate the environment by avert chemical and not filling up a landfill needlessly . Your plant life will thank you .
The information in this article is partly excerpted from the bookGardening with Chickens(2016 ) by Lisa Steele .
This story originally appeared in the March / April 2018 issue ofHobby Farms .
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Lisa Steele
