Grain paddock for the chickens

Grain paddock in the forest pasture

Droopy buckwheatI
spend a lot of time reading up on homesteading topics over the winter,
and this year I fell in love with buckwheat in the abstract.  But
as I experiment with the crop in real life, the scales are falling from
my eyes.  In our vegetable garden,
buckwheat
failed as a cover crop

in our dense clay soil, and I’m not all that impressed with its
progress in the
grain
half of the chicken pasture
either.



I opted not to irrigate
in the forest pasture despite a moderately dry summer since I want to
eventually grow trouble-free crops that can be planted and then
forgotten about.  The buckwheat doesn’t enjoy this decision —
every afternoon the plants wilt and look very sad.  They bounce
back overnight, but the chicken pasture buckwheat’s growth is slower
than that of the later-planted buckwheat in the irrigated garden, even
though the chicken pasture soil is a well-drained loam enriched with
copious chicken manure.




Unfortunately, our old
field corn seed didn’t even come up, so our droopy buckwheat and some
beans are the only plants currently growing in the grain paddock. 
In retrospect, I wish I’d planted the whole area with
oilseed
sunflowers
— next
year!



Our homemade chicken
waterer
is a great
addition to any pasture, coop, or tractor.

Latest Comments

  1. Charl!i May 22, 2013

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