Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Raising Chickens

A bearded splash pullet Silkie. Photo/Stephen Green-Armytage/Newsteam

This article was adapted from its original, posted at Permies.com by Paul Wheaton.

After years of scraping/shoveling/scrubbing chicken poop, selling meat/eggs for just a hair more than he paid for feed, and not being able to take a few days away from the chickens, Paul Wheaton has discovered a system where he never scrapes or shovels chicken poop, turns a profit, and can go more than a week away from the birds. Here's what he has to say about it:

At any given time when raising chickens I thought what I was doing at that time was "the best" only later to learn of something I like better. Now, when somebody asks about my opinion on the way they are raising chickens, I find myself tongue-tied. I see their chickens standing in shit all day, eating feed made from grains (and other things) considered too awful for human consumption. The feed is often medicated and loaded with vitamins and minerals that somebody thinks is good for the average chicken—it has to be, because what the chicken really wants to eat is not available to the chicken.

I want to paint a picture of something healthier that would be easy to do. To build a foundation, I need to first explore the other ways that I'm aware of raising chickens. There are a lot of techniques out there. I've tried nearly all of them. I've visited a lot of farms and a lot of city coops. I've had a lot of people ask me what I think of their approach. And usually my answer is not the answer they were hoping for.

Logic, Reason, Passion, and Raising Chickens
I'm going to start off examining the base approaches of raising chickens, then cover a lot of the other details. At the risk of finding mobs with torches and pitchforks beating on my front door, I'm also going to mention what I don't like about these systems.

Concerns About the Way Most People Raise Chickens
The moment you put an animal in a cage or behind a fence, you are taking responsibility for the welfare of that animal. If you are a person of conscience, then you want to treat the animal well— possibly giving it a life better than if the animal were on its own in the wild. Does this imply that every person of conscience who has caged any animal has the arrogance to believe that they can improve upon nature's designs?

We can attempt to protect the animals from predators—this is easy to wrap our heads around. We can attempt to provide food that is better than what they would find in the wild. But wait! We can't seem to agree on what is best for humans to eat, let alone another species that does not speak our language. Some simple trial and error reveals what foods are preferred or result in "progress," but a lot of this information is being contested regularly.

The first domesticated chickens were plucked from the jungle. For thousands of years, chickens have been bred to survive non-jungle situations. But when they get loose they rarely survive anywhere on their own but in the jungle—"Dammit! The chickens got out and wiped out the strawberries!"

Since chickens are driven to choose what to eat based on instinct, it would seem that the strawberries may have supplied something that was not in their "chicken feed". Consider for a moment being put into a cage where your only food is moldy "human chow" (everything your human needs for growth and reproduction, now with ground up minerals!) and your only drink is dirty water. And just out of reach of your cage are fresh strawberries. This image would not be complete without a farmer saying, "I must be doing a good job of raising these humans, because most of them haven't died!"

The jungle comes complete with polyculture foods all year long. Greens, bugs, fruits, grains and more. Mostly fresh. Something we cannot do all year because we have winter. Most chicken feeds eliminate three out of four of these - leaving only grain. And that grain is dried grain, not fresh. Since we have learned that grain alone makes for a sickly chicken, "chicken feed" also contains dried legumes and a vitamin/mineral mix that contains the vitamins and minerals that we are aware of that we think chickens need.

I see people build massive, elaborate stuff for raising chickens that deprive them of fresh foods or bugs even in the summer. Or natural sunlight. Or have them standing in their own poop all day. Or, worse, the chickens are killed by predators.

And this is the norm. Therefore, I am concerned about the way most people are raising chickens.

Six Approaches to Raising Chickens
These are all of the methods I'm aware of for raising chickens. All of these can be done in the city or on a farm. And lots of folks come up with combinations of these, like using a coop and run, but letting your chickens free range once in a while.

• factory
• coop and run
• chicken tractor
• truly free range
• pastured poultry pens
• pastured poultry paddocks

I'm a strong advocate of the last one: paddocks. Later I'll go into a lot of detail of why I like paddocks so much more than the others. But, first, I want to make up some metrics to better help me describe why I like the paddocks approach so much.

Raising Chickens: Metrics
I've tried to come up with a way to represent these ideas numerically, for comparison. I've tried to use a scale such that the value 10 is best. These numbers are entirely made up by me and are a numerical representation of my opinion.

• Vegetation Factor: How much quality vegetation is available to the chicken. 0 = none, 10 = so much that the chicken doesn't eat any of the provided chicken feed. Negative values represent feeding toxic plants to chickens. This is the strongest driving force to me. If I can get my feed bill near zero, then I have increased my profit margin by a factor of 8 or so. Plus, I am powerfully driven by the idea of my animals eating from a polyculture.
• Bug Factor: Nearly half of a chicken's natural diet is bugs. The more bugs a chicken can eat, the less feed I have to buy. 0 = no bugs are available, 10 = the chickens get their fill with plenty of bugs to spare. This might be a good time to point out that when I see "100% vegetarian diet!" on a carton of eggs, I think "we are raising chickens to suffer to satisfy the passions of ignorant twits!" I have yet to see a package of eggs with the words "diet includes bugs and other meat". What's funny about the egg carton pictured is right next to "vegetarian diet" is "certified humane".
• Poop-Cleaning Factor: How much effort is exerted in cleaning up chicken poop. 0 = fixed coop, 10 = no effort.
• Poop Hygiene Factor: 0 = every moment of every day the chicken is standing on poopy bits and breathing in ammonia, 10 = the chicken is never standing on poop and the air is as fresh as it can get.
• Work Factor: 0 = about 4 hours per week for 25 birds, 10 = about 2 minutes per week for 25 birds.
• Natural Habitat Factor: 0 = factory farms, 10 = completely loose in a jungle 
• Confinement Factor: 0 = factory farms, 10 = truly free range
• Food Cost Factor: 0 = factory farms, 10 = the chickens do not eat purchased food 

Raising Chickens in a Factory FarmLayers packed into small cages, meat birds in huge warehouses. Poop and stink everywhere. No natural sun. The so called "free range" birds are given a patch of grass, but it seems so alien to them, they choose to not take advantage of it - they would rather hang out by the feeder.
The following pics are so gross, they are intentionally left small. After all, this isn't really what this article is about, but it is presented as a reference. You can click on any of the pictures to get a full size pic. I would like to thank farmsanctuary.org for freely sharing these images.

factory farm layers	more factory farm layers	factory farm layers poop
factory meat chickens	more factory meat chickens

vegetation factor: 0
bug factor: 0
poop cleaning factor: 0
poop hygiene factor: 0
work factor: 2 - I imagine that systems are optimized to keep the level of work low
natural habitat factor: 0
confinement factor: 0
food cost factor: 0







Raising Chickens with Coop and Run
Exactly one non-portable chicken coop and exactly one non-portable chicken run. Probably the most common way to be raising chickens. This is, no doubt, a huge step above and beyond what the factories do. An excellent first step. And while I embrace this technique as something that can be pretty good, I hope to impress upon you by the end of the article something I think is better.
I wish to express that we all have to start somewhere. It is better to have something like everybody else the first time and learn by it, than to shoot for perfection the first time and never be raising chickens at all! Coop and run is how I was raising chickens as a kid. It was how I did it when I was first raising chickens as an adult. I think that whenever somebody first has the thought of raising chickens, this is what they imagine.

This is my rendition of a typical coop and run. The point of this image is the part that is brown. That designates an area where stuff doesn't grow anymore. For most coop/runs I have seen, the entire run is without vegetation.

Vegetation Factor: 0 to 7 - I have seen coops and runs that were too small, so every spec of vegetation was utterly gone. So the vegetation factor would be the same for a factory farm: zero. Although I have never seen it, I can imagine a chicken run loaded with plenty of variety of plants edible to chickens. But without the element of paddock shift (more on paddock shift later), the vegetation cannot do nearly as well.
Bug Factor: 1 to 3 - With a really small run, the chickens will wipe out all of the bugs and then they only get those bugs that happen to come through the fence. With a really big run, the same thing happens, but a bigger fence means more bugs will find their way in.
Poop Cleaning Factor: 0 to 1 - You can make it a little easier on yourself if you can pile lots and lots of straw or sawdust in the coop. Maybe the lower layers will eventually compost and you'll have less muck to muck out (some folks do this compost trick with the idea that it will warm the coop in the winter. It works, but I have concerns about it too). Still ... some day you have to get all of that poop out of there. What an awful job. I would think that a lot of people would switch to the paddock system for this one reason alone! If the run is too small, you might have to shovel poop out of the run too.
Poop Hygiene Factor: 0 to 4 - Most non-portable coops STINK! To me, this seems just plain wrong. The only shelter that the chicken has is a disgusting health hazard. Often, the ground is covered in poop and there are even little poop mounds under the roosts. Smaller runs are sometimes one big layer of chicken poop. Better coops and runs are often better by being much bigger and/or getting cleaned frequently. Sometimes daily. Some coop designs have a mesh bottom where most of the poop falls through to a compost pile underneath. But there is still poop on the wire mesh and there is still that awful ammonia smell coming from the pile.
Work Factor: 1 to 6 - Generally you pack in feed and water twice a day. Some folks scoop poop every day, some folks scoop poop more like once a month. It is possible to have a watering system and bigger feeder set up to cut back on the feeding chores. And if your coop has a mesh bottom, you might be able to just throw straw or sawdust onto the poop pile once a week - but eventually that pile has to be dealt with. And you are still going to need to clean that mesh once in a while.
Natural Habitat factor: 2 to 6 - Even the worst coop/run combo is a big step up from factory farms. I can imagine a massive chicken run loaded with 20 trees and loads of bushes and all sorts of polyculture edible growies. Unfortunately, the chickens will eventually have an over impact on a lot of those growies and the quality will slowly degrade.
Confinement Factor: 1 to 6 - Granted, the worst coop/run is far, far better than a factory farm. But ... wouldn't a loose chicken be ten times better off than being in the worst coop/run? Hence the value of "1". I've never seen a run that I would give a value of higher than 3, but it is theoretically possible to have a really huge run - so I'm allowing a value of "6" on the high side.
Food Cost Factor: 0 to 3 - Nearly all coop/run situations provide zero to near zero vegetation food for the chickens. But .... a freaky huge run loaded with excellent plants is possible. Any grains or annuals will probably be wiped out before they can get very big. But some good trees could provide a fair amount of food.

A paddock system would have a micro coop that you can drag around from paddock to paddock. Easier and cheaper to build than any of the non-portable coops I've seen. And since the micro coop is portable, there is no more mucking out the coop and the vegetation under and around the coop doesn't get wiped out.

Raising chickens in the exact same area day after day harbors diseases. Since there is a lot of chicken poop in the area and a lack of plant growth to take in the manure, the poop is headed for the groundwater supply.

The following picture is provided with permission from happyeggs.org. I think this is an excellent example of a typical chicken run that has been in use for more than a few months.

Note the pits. That's where the chickens have scratched and scratched in the same spot for months. The upside is that they make themselves some lovely dust baths - something that chickens need. Note also - no edible vegetation in the run although there is vegetation outside of the run. The fencing appears to be some pos/neg temporary electric fencing - excellent for a paddock shift system! If you go to their site and look, you will see that they have about 20 chickens and they have room to spare. These folks could take their existing fencing and make a paddock about half the size of this one on fresh vegetation; then make a new paddock like that once a week and move the chickens to the new paddock. They could probably easily have five paddocks like this. The chickens would then constantly be on edible vegetation and get far more bugs. Plus they would have less chance of getting sick being in the same place all the time and ... and ... and ... well ... I have lots more to say about this, but I'll say it all later.

This picture is of my first chicken run (as an adult) from a long time ago. You can see that there is a LOT more vegetation outside of the run. Proof that the chickens do eat this stuff. Consider - the more of this stuff they eat, the less your feed bill is.

Note how the chickens are down to the dirt under the bush. Also note how the vegetation inside of the run is less diverse than the vegetation outside the run: chickens have preferences - there were lots of "weeds" outside of the run, but only grass and the serviceberry bush inside the run. The chickens like "weeds" better than grass. The fencing in this case is 6 feet tall field fence. It keeps in about 95% of the flightiest layers.

Raising Chickens with a Chicken Tractor

Basic chicken tractor design

This is generally a small, portable pen about three feet wide and six feet long with no bottom. You keep three to six chickens in it. The reason it is called a tractor is because it is used a bit like a rototiller (I think "chicken tiller" or "chicken plow" would probably have been more accurate). The idea is that you leave this pen in one spot and the chickens will eat all of the vegetation and will scratch for bugs and stuff. In the end, it is lightly tilled and covered in chicken poop - all ready for you to plant your crops!

There are people who do not use a chicken tractor structure this way. They use their chicken tractor structure as tiny salatin-style pen, which I discuss later. This technique is sometimes referred to as a "chicken ark". For this section I am going to refer strictly to the chicken tractor used to eliminate all vegetation. For the "chicken ark" style of use, please refer to the salatin-style pen section.

Another common chicken tractor design

The pictures below are from the Washington State University test fields: the person giving the tour bounced back and forth between calling these chicken tractors or salatin-style "pastured poultry" pens. Although these are definitely bigger than anything I would call a chicken tractor, they are also smaller than anything I would call a salatin-style "pastured poultry" pen. The important thing is the clear demonstration of my concern with a chicken tractor. The first pic shows where the tractor will be put tommorrow

The second pic shows where the tractor was yesterday.
The important part of this pic is to note how much greenery was consumed yesterday. These are about five feet wide and ten feet long. With 35 chickens in each. That, in my opinion, is way too many chickens for such small pens. I think that such small pens should have no more than 15 to 20 birds and should be moved at least twice a day. Salatin recommends that the birds consume about 30% of the vegetation. This looks more like 90% to me.

While the WSU pictures show some of my concerns about raising chickens in chicken tractors, I do have to say that in this picture, WSU has mitigated my primary concern even though you might not be able to tell in the picture. First, the chicken tractor concept is to eliminate ALL vegetation - which clearly is not done in this picture. Second, I happen to know that this is not a normal pasture. This is a test plot. A pasture would contain 10 to 100 plant species - a few of which would be toxic. This test plot contains only clover and rye. Neither of which is toxic to chickens.

While I have seen many cases of chicken tractors eliminating all vegetation from a polyculture, I did not think to take a picture of it. Please don't ever use a "chicken tractor" to remove all vegetation. This may (debatably) be good for your garden, but I think it is a terrible way for raising chickens - as I will explain below.

Vegetation Factor: -2 (negative two) - that's right, this can be worse than a factory farm. Consider that in general, 40% of what grows on the ground is probably good for chickens to eat. 30% is slightly toxic and the rest is moderately toxic to very toxic. Since chickens will instinctively eat what is good for them, they start off really great! But once all of the good stuff is gone, then they eat the slightly toxic stuff. And then they are walking the edge between craving greens and the only greens being poison - so they slowly eat the poisonous greens - slowly enough so that they don't die. They might not even show any signs of being ill. But you probably do notice that the last few bits of green seem to last 20 times longer than the first bits of green. Bug factor: 1 to 2
Poop Cleaning Factor: 8 to 10 - there is no bottom, so rather than cleaning poop, you just move the tractor.
Poop Hygiene Factor: 1 to 2 - For a while, the chickens are on fresh vegetation. Before moving, nearly all the ground has poop. Sometimes the pen is not moved until there is a solid mat of poop.
Work Factor: 1 to 3
Natural Habitat Factor: 1 to 2
Confinement Factor: 1 to 2
Food Cost Factor: 1 to 2
About half the feedback I get on this article is bashing me for bashing chicken tractors.

Raising Chickens Truly Free Range
I have to put the word "truly" in there because factory farms use the phrase "free range" to mean something really stupid. The idea here is that your chickens have 24x7 access to your whole place. On the farm, you probably have no fence and the chickens just don't go too far from the food. In the city, you might have a fenced yard and the chickens just stay in there.

Usually, there's a coop where the chickens go to lay eggs and to roost every night. If so, then you have all of the hassles that come with the coop. If not, then you have all of the hassles that come with finding eggs or finding the chickens when it is time to harvest.

Vegetation Factor: 2 to 10 - How to get a 2 is pretty obvious. To get a 10, you have a rich polyculture that has far more food than the chickens could eat.
Bug Factor: 6 to 10
Poop-Cleaning Factor: 0 to 10 - Even if you don't have a coop, there will be poop all over everything where you don't want poop! At first this was "3 to 4" and then I had some people write to me to say that they had terrible problems with poop all over all sorts of things where they didn't want poop and it was far worse than the worst coop! They implored me to discourage folks from raising chickens with a free range approach due to the endless poop everywhere. And then I had people write to me to insist that I should give a value of 10 since they have personally never seen any chicken poop with their free range chickens. I suppose if you had some nearly feral chickens this could happen. So after a bunch of conversations I'm opening it to the full range, but I think the average is gonna be 3.
Poop Hygiene Factor: 3 to 10 - Even if you don't have a coop, you will find that the chickens will want to hang out in the same place day after day and make a hygiene issue. Usually right on your porch. They like you. Again, a couple of feral-ish chickens on lots of acres will be what scores a 10 - but this isn't very common.
Work Factor: 3 to 10 - Even if you don't have to feed or water them, you still have to clean that poop! Again, I put the number "10" here because of the nearly ferral element. But I really think "3" is the most likely.
Natural Habitat Factor: 6 to 10
Confinement Factor: 10
Food Cost Factor: 4 to 10

The chickens are everywhere. Here they are unmulching some fruit trees:


I set a piece of plywood on the porch while I came inside to have lunch. In no time at all, the chickens turned it into a roost and pooped on it:



Reshaping a pear tree. Note that the mulch is now all gone.


Several white rock roosters turned out to think they could take anybody down. Even me. They would attack and attack and attack. Until they took that special trip to the soup pot.


This was a lovely place to sit until it was perpetually covered in chicken poop:


These turkeys found some perfectly good hay and straw to poop on:


The weird thing about this picture is that the turkeys really wanted to spend all of their lives about 20 feet due south from this point, sitting on the porch. A snow shovel and a scoop shovel were kept on the porch and turkey poop was shoveled off twice a day. So gross:


Here is a wonderful upside to raising chickens truly free range - every once in a while, a chicken can hide a clutch of eggs from us and then pops out with some chicks:


Free-range chickens try to eat all of the dog food and cat food. Watch out! Free-range chickens can wipe out your garden. Soils and pastures will do better when given a chance to rest between visits from the chickens. With free range, there is no way to have that rest.

Because of trying this, I now have chicken scratches all over my car: They attempted to roost on the bottom edges of windows, only the window made it hard to do that. So they would desperately try to keep from falling off by using their claws.

If you find an egg in an odd spot, don't eat it - you have no idea how old it is. I would find eggs on my workbench. And chicken poop on my porch, in my shop, on my workbench... it's just everywhere. They even started nesting in the baler.

And when chickens are spread out in the day, it's harder to protect them from predators.

Raising Chickens in Pastured Poultry Pens

A standard salatin-style pastured poultry pen.

Joel Salatin is a brilliant man! His book Pastured Poultry is excellent. In the book, he describes making a pen that is about 10 feet wide and 20 feet long. He puts a bunch of chickens inside and then moves the pen one pen length every twelve hours or so. The chickens eat a fair amount of the pasture and bugs and leave behind a bunch of chicken poop. This cuts his feed bill about 20% which adds up to profit!

Vegetation Factor: 1 to 3 - lots of pasture stuff but no trees, shrubs or stuff that doesn't do well in pasture. Because it is such a great system, I want to give a higher number. But I think the very best pastured poultry system might cut the feed bill by 30% - so the highest number I can give is a 3.
Bug Factor: 2 to 3 - when the pen is freshly moved, 90% of the bugs in the pen are probably consumed in the first 20 minutes. Then the chickens wait for bugs to happen to pop into the pen.
Poop Cleaning Factor: 10 - a perfect score. How could there possibly ever be any poop to clean?
Poop Hygiene Factor: 6 to 8 - After six hours, there's a fair amount of fresh poop right where the chickens are standing.
Work Factor: 0 to 3 - All the feeding and watering, plus, move that pen twice a day every day. Some folks might do just once a day. And the pens are generally not too terribly close by.
Natural Habitat Factor: 2 - lots of excellent sunshine, but a chicken is a forest animal.
Confinement Factor: 3 to 4
Food Cost Factor: 2 to 3
I used pastured poultry pens for several years with moderate success. I once heard a fella suggest that rather than move the pens, park an empty pen next to a full pen and then open the doors between the two: the chickens will run into the new pen to get the new grass! It works great! And eliminates the problem of when you drag the pens, the chickens all wanna run away from you so they end up and the opposite end that is dragging - I constantly worry that they will get trapped under the edge that is dragging.

Here is my first design using the "door technique". I used PVC pipe which made it plenty lightweight.

I came up with about five design improvement ideas, but at the end of the first season, it started to break a lot. It turns out that most PVC is not UV resistant. The following season it just crumbled - it turns out the most PVC also hates temperatures of -20.

Having it be very lightweight is important to me. The lighter it is, the easier everything is. I came up with an idea using cattle panels, but they are kinda heavy. And then I got the idea of making them modular. One pen could be made of three "modules" with two ends. When I set up a new pen, I could just lift one "end" between the two pens, the chickens run through and then the front end of the old pen becomes the back end on the new pen.

This worked very well! Except that as the season went on we started to figure out that the time to move the pens was kinda huge. Rather than about 10 to 15 minutes per pen (move the pen, new water and feed) it was about 25 minute per pen (moving the modules and bungee-ing them together). I needed something faster.

One idea was to buy one of those Costco temporary garages and toss out the legs that make it high. I put it on 2x4 skids and dragged it around.


Still too heavy.

Poly pipe is really light. And fairly stiff.


Well, not stiff enough.

1/4 inch steel rod is stiffer. And I won't need much. I welded some together and held the shape with clothesline.


It rusted freaky fast. I ran through a massive collection of ideas about paint (it will come off) and oil and ....

I put the steel rods through the poly pipe. The poly pipe protects the steel rods and the steel rods add rigidity to the poly pipes.

About at this point is when I got the idea for the chicken paddocks. I didn't even finish building this prototype - but I am convinced that if building a portable pen, this design is the best. Exceptionally lightweight. Cheap and easy to build. Should have an excellent lifespan.

Raising Chickens in Paddocks
Ahhhh .... now this is the ultimate solution for raising chickens. At least, it is the best that I'm currently aware of. There are two basic approaches:

1. Four or more fenced areas. Put the chickens in an area and after 7 to 10 days move to the next area. Each area gets at least 28 days of rest until the chickens return. The more areas you have, they can be smaller and the time spent in an area can be less. If the chickens consume more than 30% of the vegetation, you have too many chickens or too small of a paddock.
2. Get the same effect with portable fencing.

Paddock shift systems often improve the paddock. Some folks report five times more vegetation when using paddock shift like the one suggested here. This is something that vegans do not consider when designing gardens with no animals. So, imagine your garden without chickens produces less than your garden with chickens where the chickens eat 30%. Joel Salatin calls this system the "egg-mobile" and often has the chickens following cattle in a paddock shift system. The paddock shift system in the following image has some things that concern me—but! It is a paddock shift system.


Vegetation Factor: 2 to 10
Bug Factor: 5 to 10
Poop Cleaning Factor: 9 to 10 - Get a 10 if the micro coop has no bottom.
Poop Hygiene Factor: 9 to 10
Work Factor: 4 to 10 - imagine moving the chickens once a week or so. Just open a gate and drag the micro coop to the new paddock. The chickens are anxious to get to the new space. Total time is about a minute. Oh sure, you probably should look in on them every day. But you don't have to. The lower value is for temporary paddocks - they take more times to set up and take down each week.
Natural Habitat factor: 6 to 10
Confinement Factor: 9 to 10
Food Cost Factor: 4 to 10
Note that it is possible to have a 10 for every metric.

Each paddock can contain trees, brush and annual plants that provide a plethora of people food as well as chicken food. When the raspberries are on, go into the paddock and pick all the raspberries. Then move the chickens in and they'll find whatever you missed and will eat the lower fruit that comes on during their time there.

A teeny tiny dribble of a creek running through each paddock would be nice - it would save you from having to bring water in.

To help paint a picture .... I've ... well ... painted a crappy picture.

My rendition of a city lot complete with a pretty nice coop and run.

Here is the same lot without the coop and run. Instead there are four temporary paddocks and a portable micro-coop. The chickens spend 7 to 10 days in a paddock. Each area rests from the chickens at least 28 days. Each paddock is loaded with people food and chicken food. When the time comes to move the chickens, set up the new paddock and then create an opening between the two paddocks. Drag the micro-coop to the new paddock and the chickens will run to the fresh forage. Close the new paddock and take down the old paddock.



Here is a picture of using temporary paddocks in a city lot. In this case, this person is using some short fence that is designed to contain dogs. She moves it every few days.

She gave me permission to pass on these words about her system:

What you can see in the pic is the dry/eaten area right in front of the coop. That's where the coop has stayed in one position while the pen is moved several times in different orientations to the pen, so the area right in front of the coop gets a little "worn" which they can use as a shady dust bath area right under their ramp, but *not* cuz they are out of good forage anywhere else. You see the green grass to the left side of the pic where the pen goes now, you can not see the whole pen obviously its bigger. Last time, the pen came straight out front of the coop, you can kind of tell the grass right around the little bowl (for kitchen tidbits) is more eaten than the grass on the left side. That slightly worn grass is as bad as it gets before I move the pen as you seen in the fresh grass on the left. The pen is easy to move, I do it before I let them out in the morning. I *usually* (not always) do the work of locking and letting out due to aggressive urban raccoons. On the rare day when I am forced to leave them in for some weird reason, they eat nearly twice as much food when I refill it as when they are out, so I believe they are getting about 40% of their food from forage.

Raising Chickens: The Grand Summary

style	vegetation factor	bug factor	poop cleaning factor	poop hygiene factor	work factor	natural habitat factor	confinement factor	food cost factor
factory farm	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0
coop and run done poorly	0	1	0	0	3	2	1	0
coop and run done well	7	3	1	4	6	6	6	3
chicken tractor done poorly	-2	1	8	1	3	1	1	1
chicken tractor done well	-2	2	10	2	1	2	2	2
truly free range done poorly	2	6	0	3	5	6	10	4
truly free range done well	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	10
pp pens done poorly	1	2	10	6	0	2	3	2
pp pens done well	3	3	10	8	3	2	4	3
pp paddocks done poorly	2	5	9	9	4	6	9	4
pp paddocks done well	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	10

Further discussion about coops, runs, tractors, pens or paddocks or raising chickens in general in this thread at permies.com.

Predator Control
When I moved onto my first farm, I was told that nobody in the neighborhood was able to be raising chickens because there was such a serious coyote problem. Sure enough, you can hear them howling and yipping every night. But I was dead set on raising chickens. I told the neighbors that I'll just build some super fence to keep the coyotes out. They told me stories of people with all sorts of amazing fences and the coyotes still killed all of the chickens.

Research! I could find lots of people that had some wimpy fence and never had any predator trouble: "Do it like me! You won't have any problems! I promise!" I was tempted, but my gut said that these folks did not have the coyote challenge I faced and if I tried to do what they did, all of my chickens would be killed.

And then I met a woman advocating dogs to protect the chickens. Which struck me as not quite right because not only were coyotes rather dog-like, I've heard of people losing chickens to dogs. This woman had the patience to carefully explain to me that there are certain breeds of dogs that have been bred for thousands of years to protect livestock, including chickens. These dogs would take on a mountain lion to save a chicken. And then the woman told me about how she had built what she was sure was a coyote proof fence only to lose every last chicken to coyotes. And then she got a great Pyrenees dog and never lost a chicken to predators after that.

After hearing from two more people with similar experiences with livestock guardian dogs, I bought a great Pyrenees pup. Liza. Well, she wasn't a pure bred great pyr. She had a little Anatolian shepherd (another livestock guardian dog breed) and a pinch of Saint Bernard.


On patrol with Henry, a mutt. Henry always followed Liza's lead so they made an excellent team.


Liza and Henry were both very people-friendly.


You could hear Liza battle the coyotes nearly every night. First you hear the howling and then about 3/4 of a second later you hear Liza running at full speed. About 12 seconds later you hear the howling replaced by "hyipe! yipe! yipe!" - she's run them off.

She patrolled all night for all predators. And if the chickens make a certain noise during the day, she's right there looking to see if there might be any threat. I have a lot more to say about livestock guardian dogs. But for now, let me just leave it at: if you have acreage, a livestock guardian breed of dog is the way to go. Everything becomes much easier and cheaper.

Predator Control without a Livestock Guardian Dog
If you are not going to use an LGD, then this topic can fill a book. I'm going to only skim the surface of a few of the basics. I'll be happy to explore more details in the forum as people have questions. Maybe some day I'll expand on this topic a bit, but I kinda doubt it since I travel the LGD path.
Before leaving biological control behind, I want to mention the use of llamas, donkeys and attack geese: I've heard lots of stories of success and and equal number of stories of failure. The failure stories make sense to me. The success stories make me wonder if the predator pressure may have been low.

I think it is possible that there are ways to have llamas, donkeys or geese work to protect your chickens and I just don't fully understand it yet. Or maybe these folks have come across animals that just so happen to have a powerful passion to protect chickens, which leaves one to wonder how to duplicate the process. I have heard that for llamas to be effective, you need to have only one llama. Otherwise, the llamas will protect only the llamas and nothing else. If there is only one llama, the llama thinks the chickens are its family and will protect the chickens. There is an excellent book (Livestock Guardians: Using Dogs, Donkeys, and Llamas to Protect Your Herd) that goes into a lot of detail about the finer points of getting llamas and donkeys to work for you. It also covers LGDs quite thoroughly, including all the bits and bobs about breeds. There has also been a fair amount of discussion here.

Let's start simple. Raccoons. Raccoons climb and dig and I have heard that they can break "chicken wire". So they can climb over a fence - or they will even climb a tree to get in and climb a different tree to get out. So a physical barrier alone will be quite the challenge. I suspect that raccoons are the number one reason why folks stop raising chickens.

The most common approach is to close up the coop at night and open the coop again in the morning. Raccoons are mostly nocturnal, and you focus your security effort on the coop. But now you have also added two chores a day that require you to be home on time. And sleeping in in the morning isn't particularly good for the chickens. And forgetting to lock them in at night ... well ... that depends on how often the raccoons test the lock.

I've heard of folks setting up the coop door with a weight or a spring so that if you just pull a small pin, the door will open. And then setting up a wind-up alarm clock that will pull the pin in the morning. All of this so folks can sleep in a bit in the morning. Not a bad idea!

Live traps don't work so good: first, you end up catching animals you don't want to catch. Second, if you catch the raccoon and take it far, far away, you'll find that that raccoon was keeping other raccoons away. So new raccoons come along a little later and you're back to square one.

An electric fence can work very well. You have to make sure that your zapper has a powerful punch. After all, an electric fence is a psychological barrier. When the raccoon encounters it and you don't have a lot of pop, then the raccoon tries to decide if the pain will be worth it - or if it can find a way in without getting shocked. With a big pop, a raccoon thinks DAMMIT! .... RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!
Using electric fence on large portable paddocks works really well. You should never use electric fence for a small paddock. It's too stressful for the animals inside the paddock.

Anything that works on a raccoon will also generally work on coyotes, dogs, foxes (canines), cats (all sizes), skunks and opossums. Although the canines are more apt to dig than raccoons.

This cat (walter cronkite) generally eats a bird a day, but has never taken a chicken:
Weasels (which includes minks) will dig a little and climb a little, but what they are really great at is squeezing themselves through a tiny space and then eating the heads off of all of the chickens. One day all will be great, and the next morning you find all of your chickens have no heads. Weasels can also chew through wood a bit.

Rats are a different sort of problem. They will take eggs and chicks, but I have yet to hear of a rat taking down a grown chicken. More on rats and mice here and here. Snakes can pose a similar problem.

Raptors (hawks, eagles, owls, etc.) will take chickens and chicks. Some ravens will take chicks. Lots of shrubs and trees seems to solve nearly all of this during the day. A good coop solves the owl problem at night.

A couple of odd contraptions I have heard about but have never tried, nor have I even heard of anybody trying them.

• Motion-detecting water squirt. Apparently, when something crosses its sensor, it will aim water at it and squirt it. I guess this won't work during the winter.
• Red-eye thing: I guess you put a bunch of these solar powered contraptions around your property. At night, they have some sort of intermittant red light. This will, supposedly, freak out the predators. They gurantee that it will work. If anybody has any experience with this sort of contraption, please tell us about it in the critter care forum.

Chickens Harvesting Their Own FeedThis is where permaculture really shines.

Imagine an area for the chickens which has en enormous mulberry tree dropping fruit throughout June, July and August. There is a plethora of clover, alfalfa, grains, sunflowers, buckwheat, peas and lentils in the more open areas. Fruit and nut trees are surrounded by Siberian pea shrubs, chickweed, comfrey, dandelion, amaranth, nettles and sunchokes. Maybe some raspberries and blueberries are in the mix too. Assuming it is summer, why would a chicken eat dried up "chicken feed" with this bounty at hand?

When raising chickens on a large scale, you generally raise your meat birds only in the summer. And you harvest your non productive layers in the fall. So most of your chicken feeding efforts are focused in the warmer months when your chicken feed crops can be producing prolifically.

What, specifically, to grow depends on a lot of factors. How much room do you have; how cold does it get; what is your soil like; how much does it rain ....

Some plants produce more food per acre per year than other plants. And some produce food for a just a week and others produce food for six months. The best producers appear to be mulberry trees (lots of fruit dropped constantly over three months) and wheat (when grown with the bonfils method). Sepp Holzer pushes a perennial rye and sunchokes as the core chicken/pig feeds.

I advocate using the chicken paddock method. And along with that, I think that the lion's share of the people food should be grown in those same paddocks. A lot of the stuff we eat is great chicken food! And the chickens clean up anything we drop and anything we leave behind. Less waste.

This is a good time to mention polyculture. All plant eating animals are designed to eat plants from a polyculture. They eat plants, not from rows and rows of the same thing, but from a mix of a dozen or more species. Every plant has special nutrient needs and every plant exudes an excess of nutrients that it mysteriously has superpowers to find/build/whatever. The mycelium in the soil has no leaves and depends on developing a bartering relationship with plants to get sugar. The mycelium offers nutrients. The sugar water from a carrot is loaded with nutrients that the carrot has in excess. The sugar water from an oak tree is loaded with something completely different. The carrot gets a bit of the oak excess and the oak gets a bit of the carrot excess. Because the oak's roots cover a bigger territory, it gets far more diversity than the carrot. And the oak ends up inadvertantly sharing some of that with the carrot.

We have barely scratched the surface of what we know for human nutrition. And we have studied human nutrition ten thousand times more than chicken nutrition. Human nutrition is based on humans eating from a polyculture and eating the meat of animals that consumed from a polyculture. Rather than prending that we know all there is to know and growing things in a harshly organized fashion, I suggest that, instead, we grow things in a diverse polyculture of 50 or more species. I suspect that by doing this, the vegetation will become far richer in nutrients (both known and currently unknown) than if we attempt to infuse the soil with known nutrients. Diversity would include things that make for good chicken feed and things that make for good people feed. Rather than have an area for the chickens and an area for the people food, have one area for both (and many other purposes too).
Since paddock shift systems tend to encourage five times more growth of vegetation, the result should be MORE people food than if chickens were not rotated through the area.

For the winter, a lot of remaining grains and seeds will still be on their stalks. The taller stalks will eventually fall to the level chickens can get it. Winter apples will often stay on the trees deep into the winter. When they fall, they will keep for a long time on the ground. Kale can provide some winter greens. If chickens follow pigs in a rotation, pigs will often pull up sunchokes (and other tubers) and leave scraps for the chickens. Sepp Holzer has observed chickens eating the manures of other animals in winter. His son reports that they will provide feed to chickens only on the dozen coldest days of the year.

For further reading:

optimize laying

perenial feed that chickens can harvest themselves

chicken forage

fukuoka-bonfils wheat method for chicken feed

coop insulation

raising meal worms as chicken feed

chickens in the city/burbs

chicken predators

livestock guardian animals

maggot feeding station for poultry

black soldier fly larvae for poultry

Vermicompost Project Coming to Better Farm this March!

Vermicompost photo from IU Kelley School of Business.

We'll be joined in March by Matt Smith, a clean air advocate and leading member of 350.org's New Jersey coalition. He's been making headlines for his work building opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline and fracking legislation, and pushing for sustainability and cleaner energy policies. When he moves to Better Farm next month, he'll be launching a vermicompost project that will incorporate community involvement, sustainability initiatives, and lots and lots of worms. Our interns will be playing a big part in getting this operation up and running; and their involvement will educate them so they can initiate similar projects back home after leaving Better Farm. Here are some excerpts from Matt's project outline.

Vermicompost Project Proposal for Better Farm

Mission: Design, construct and operate a scalable vermicomposting system to be located at Better Farm for the following purposes.

Goals: 

• Develop a low-cost vermicomposting system that is scalable for municipal and commercial use.
• Test which combinations of organic materials demonstrate the quickest decomposition times.
• Test which combination of organic materials offers the highest composted nutrient yields.
• Test which environment(s) including temperature, aeration frequency, moisture content etc. provide the quickest decomposition times.
• Develop a low cost, scalable system for converting worm casings (poop) from composting into liquefied organic fertilizer.

Project Scope: Conduct research and field Studies of existing vermicomposting operations in New York State and surrounding areas to identify a system design that meets the project goals. Construct the vermicomposting system (will need project support to complete this step). Acquire Red (Earth) Worms for vermicomposting. Partner with local households, farms, food stores etc. to haul away their organic waste for vermicomposting on Better Farm. Partnerships will be designed to benefit all parties involved, with a dual goal of promoting Better Farm's existing outreach and community engagement efforts. Operate and maintain vermicomposting system on Farm for duration of project.

Additional Information: If the amount of organic soil and or liquefied fertilizer exceeds practical use on the farm, soil and/or fertilizer will be sold. All activities related to the construction of a vermicomposting system, including partnering with individuals and other organizations in the community, will adhere to the mission of Better Farm and principles of the Better Theory.

Growing Potatoes in Tires

Potato tire tower photo by Bonzai Aphrodite

We've bemoaned the tragedy of eating non-organic potatoes (see: "The Seven Foods Safety Experts Won't Eat" and "Potato, Potahto") A pack of organic potato seeds will run you about $3.50 and will provide you with pounds upon pounds of this vegetable. But what if you're tight on space for growing your veggies? We've found a solution. Check out this Instructables entry on  growing potatoes in old tires.

Chitting

means that when you receive your seed potatoes in around February, you place them in a light, dry environment, but out of direct sunlight (a north facing window sill is a good place) and wait for small shoots to grow from the eye of the potato, which should be facing up. When looking at a potato, you will notice that one end will usually have more eyes than the other end, this is called the rose end. Early potatoes need to be chitted before being planted, while maincrop varieties don't absolutely need it but will benefit from being chitted before being planted.

If growing potatoes in tires, first chose a sunny spot in your garden or balcony. Ensure there is drainage below the tire, as potatoes don't like getting water-logged, though they do need sufficient water for the tubers to form.

Early potatoes can be planted at the end of March, while maincrop potatoes are usually planted in April, at the latest at the beginning of May. The main aspect affecting planting time is frost. Potatoes are only half-hardy and any frost will kill off emerging plants.

Fill the tire with damp earth to just over half the depth and place 4 - 5 seed potatoes in it, with the eye or shoots facing up. Cover with a couple of inches of soil. In this example, we have used seed potatoes for a maincrop which have not been chitted.

Keep the soil moist but not wet and within about six weeks there should be several healthy potato plants growing. If your seed potatoes were chitted, the plants should appear sooner.

If there is any chance of a late frost, protect the young plants with straw or earth them up immediately as they appear.

When the young potato plants are two to three inches high, add a second tire to the stack and add more soil, almost but not quite covering them.

Continue covering the emerging plants with soil until your stack is 3 tires high. Tubers will be forming all the way up the stack of tires.

Early potatoes are ready to harvest when the flowers have opened or the buds fallen off. Dig a few tubers up and check—they should be about the size of a hen's egg. With maincrop potatoes, wait until the foliage has turned brown, cut off at the stems and wait a few days before lifting.

One of the cons of the traditional method of growing potatoes in long rows, is that you have to ensure you have dug up every single tuber each autumn. Growing potatoes in tires avoids the possibility of missing that one tiny potato which would ruin your carrot patch next year!

Ways You Can Get Involved with All Things Better

Photo/Erin Fulton

Love reading about what we're doing out here at Better Farm, but unsure how you can get involved? Here's a quick cheatsheet of ways you can hop aboard, no matter how far or near you are, or how much time you have:

Participate in our Internship Program

2011 interns Natasha Pietila, Soon Kai Poh, Lizzi Musoke, and Jaci Collins.

Better Farm’s internship program runs in one- to three-month intervals and is available to individuals interested in a myriad of sustainability issues. Each internship is carefully tailored to suit a specific person’s needs and goals. We offer internships geared toward organic small-scale farming and gardening, general farm management, alternative building, rain and graywater collection, aquaponics, community outreach, organic cooking, canning/preserving, participation in local supper clubs and/or food kitchens, and outdoor survival. Many sustainability specialists visit Better Farm throughout the year to offer mentoring and guidance to students interested in coming here to work and gain valuable experience. Additionally, interns have the option of taking any workshops scheduled during their time at Better Farm. We can host up to six interns at a time. Click here to learn more and for the application!

Apply for a betterArts Residency

betterArts residencies seek to provide an opportunity for creative exploration and growth to artists, writers, and musicians within the context of Better Farm's dynamic environment. The property boasts an on-site pond, vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens, shop space, open-air sheds for pottery and painting; a multimedia room, and a practice space for musicians (recording equipment available for a nominal additional fee).  Room and board, all food, linens and towels, wireless Internet, on-site parking, movie nights, and field trips are included in a low stipend we require of all residents. The environment is simple and communal. In addition to their work, betterArts residents are asked to interact and participate in the goings-on around the property; such as helping with farming or assisting at farmers’ markets, and participating in art-related community outreach projects. Residencies are for one week, two weeks, or month-long periods. Basic facilities at Better Farm will be provided; but betterArts residents are expected  to provide the majority of materials and equipment they would need for the production of their work.  Click here to learn more and download an application.

Teach For Us

betterArts resident Eric Drasin volunteers his time to give a music lesson to teenagers in Redwood.

betterArts is looking for instructors! We seek specialists in every area for private instruction, group workshops, lectures, and presentations for every age group and skill level. All classes, lessons, workshops, and lectures are held at BETTER FARM, 31060 Cottage Hill Road, Redwood, N.Y., unless another agreed-upon location is selected. Click here to fill out a proposal. Better Farm will also be hosting workshops throughout the summer in areas such as alternative construction projects and rainwater harvesting—click here for more information on that.

Spread the Word
Telling the people you know about the work we're doing is the best way for us to gain momentum with our projects. Sign up for our newsletter, forward links to our websites and blog, and share our Facebook posts with your friends.

Volunteer
If you're local, get in touch with us about times you're available to help us out. We can always use an extra set of hands out in the garden, in the wood shop, or helping out at different events. If you're not local and would like to come help out for a weekend, shoot us an e-mail to set something up.

Visit
We offer overnight rates for guests throughout the year. This is a great way for you to meet the people at Better Farm, check out what we're up to, and enjoy an extremely low-cost alternative to the hotels and bed and breakfasts in the Thousand Islands Region. Also available for rent are bicycles, kayaks, a sailboat, canoes, and (of course!) studio space. Click here for more information and to make a reservation.

Donate
We rely on volunteers and donations to allow us to do the vast amount of work we do, and to allow us to offer internships, residencies, and workshops at such a low cost. Click here to make a donation of any size. We are also always in need of other donations: furniture, bicycles, instruments, art supplies, construction materials, appliances, etc.—anything that makes a big old farmhouse tick!

Our Seeds Are Ordered!

Seeds photo from Lou Murray's Green World.

It's that time of year again, when we inventory the seeds we have left over at Better Farm from last year and supplement that stock with a fresh batch of organic seeds. Our previous seed source dried up, so this year we shopped around online to find the best deals on the most nutritious, organic seeds we could find.

We've already got the asparagus and garlic going strong; and our chives, some of our leeks, a little kale, and a handful of other herbs will undoubtedly start waking back up in the coming weeks (if not right now, in this unseasonably, freakishly spring-like day). We also saved some hubbard squash seeds from a squash a friend gave us. After drying them and sealing them in a plastic bag, they've been hanging out in the freezer all winter. We'll see how we do with them!

Our intern Maylisa went through the tedious process of taking seed inventory for Better Farm. Here's what that list looks like:

While we're certainly not suffering from a shortage of seeds, there were a few essentials we needed. Here's what we ordered today:

• Certified Organic Tango Celery, 100 Seed Count
• Certified Organic Tuffy Acorn Winter Squash, 25 Seed Count
• Kale Italian Lacinato Nero Toscana Certified Organic Seeds
• Organic Dark Star Zucchini Seeds - 2 grams
• Early Wonder Beet Seeds - 2 grams - Organic
• Pea Snow Oregon Sugar Pod Certified Organic Seed
• Organic Waltham Butternut Squash - 60 Seeds, 4g
• Seeds of Change Organic Renegade F1 Spinach Seeds - 3 grams
• Cucumber "Spacemaster Bush" 30 Organic Seeds   
• Organic Leek Seeds "Large American Flag Variety" - Allium Ampeloprasum Var. Porrum - 300+ Gardening Seeds 
• Walla Walla Organic Onion Seeds - Allium Cepa Approx 200 Gardening Seeds 
• 75 Kentucky Wonder Green, Organic Bean Seeds  

The seeds will be planted in the beginning of March, and situated out in the greenhouse. We'll be utilizing former intern Lizzi Musoke's rainwater catchment system to keep the babies watered, and will be getting the plants transferred into the ground the first week of June. Let the games begin! 

Make Your Own Tofu

Tofu, also called bean curd, is a food that originated in China and involves  coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into soft white blocks. Chinese legend ascribes its invention to Chinese prince Liu An (179–122 BC). Tofu and its production technique were introduced into Korea and then Japan during the Nara period; then to other parts of East Asia. This spread likely coincided with the spread of Buddhism because it is an important source of protein in the vegetarian diet of East Asian Buddhism.


Tofu has a low calorie count, relatively large amounts of protein, and little fat. It is high in iron and, depending on the coagulant used in manufacturing, may also be high in calcium and/or magnesium. There are many different varieties of tofu, including fresh tofu and tofu that has been processed in some way. Tofu has a subtle flavor and can be used in savory and sweet dishes. It is often seasoned or marinated to suit the dish.

Here's how tofu is made in a factory:


And here's how you can make it yourself:

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups (1 lb or 450 grams) of dried soybeans, soaked 8-10 hours (or overnight)

1 1/4 gallons of water
3-4 tsp nigari or calcium sulfate

Equipment:
food processor
2 large stock pots
wooden spoon
sieve and cup or bowl OR sieve or colander lined with cheesecloth
tofu press
cheesecloth or muslin for the tofu press
ladle
1 extra bowl
thermometer

Instructions

Put half of the ground soy beans into each pot. Divide the gallon of water between the pots. Bring to a boil and lower to simmer for 15-20 minutes. Watch the pots carefully as it tends to boil over. There may be a lot of foam -- you can remove it or stir it in. When it has simmered for 15-20 minutes, turn off the heat and strain.

Ladle the liquid into the strainer with the cup or bowl under it. The ground soy beans, or okara, will collect in the strainer. Remove this to a colander lined with cheesecloth. Squeeze all of the soy milk out of the okara. Wash one of the pots, pour all of the soy milk into it and take it back to the stove top.

Using your thermometer, warm the soy milk to 180 degrees. Dissolve the nigari in 1 cup of hot water. When the soy milk reaches 180 degrees, turn off the heat. Gently add the nigari mixture and stir. Turn the heat back on and gently stir until the soy milk separates -- like curds and whey. If it doesn't separate, make a small batch of nigari (1 1/2 tsp to 1/2 cup of hot water) and add it in. Stir gently. The water will turn clear and the curds will clump.

Ladle the curds and whey into the muslin- or cheesecloth-lined tofu press. Cover the tofu with the cloth and drop in the lid. Put a 3-5 pound weight on the top (large jars of tomatoes, pitcher of water, etc.) and let it sit for 20-30 minutes. The longer its pressed, the firmer the tofu.

Remove the cloth and place the tofu into a container. Cover with water and put on a tight fitting lid. It will keep for a week; change the water every day or so that it stays fresh.

Rinse and pick through the dried soybeans. Soak in plenty of water overnight or for 8-10 hours. When they are re hydrated, rinse them once more. Grind the soy beans in the food processor in 2 cup batches. Cover the beans with a little water and grind for 4-5 minutes until they are pureed and have turned white. They will have the consistency of cream of wheat.

Additional Tip: Use the okara in burgers, breads, or muffins.

Recipe from Delectable Planet

The Perks of Permanent Garden Beds

By Barbara Pleasant for Mother Earth News
One of the basic tenets of organic gardening is to put as much effort into improving soil fertility as you put into growing your crops. When you use permanent garden beds and pathways, you can concentrate on building soil in deeply worked beds that will improve over a period of years, all the while growing robust, disease-resistant vegetables. Permanent vegetable beds also make more efficient use of water and fertilizer, and soil compaction is limited to pathways where repeated footsteps can naturally inhibit the growth of weeds.

Limiting Soil Compaction With Dedicated Beds

One of the big advantages of working in permanent garden beds is that you can limit some forms of soil compaction. Wet soil is especially prone to compaction because water acts as a lubricant. The first time you step on wet soil, it can become 75 percent compacted. After the fourth step in the same spot, 90 percent of the pore spaces are gone. Soil compaction restricts root growth physically because overly dense soil is often impenetrable, plus it handicaps any roots already present by depriving them of oxygen and access to soilborne nitrogen.

You should always try to avoid stepping on your garden beds, but some operations — such as building trellises or using a broadfork — require standing space. In these cases, you can prevent unnecessary soil compaction by standing on a wide board to distribute your weight. Standing on a board or using boards as walking bridges over garden beds will reduce your body’s ground pressure from about eight pounds per square inch to less than one. Just as snowshoes make it possible to walk on snow by distributing your weight, boards, wide steppingstones or flakes of baled hay can help protect permanent vegetable beds from the compaction caused by footsteps.

Surface compaction caused by driving rain also can be troublesome, especially for clay soils. When bare soil is subjected to heavy rain, the larger particles and organic matter often wash away in the mud, leaving behind a surface layer of fine particles that dries into a crust. Organic mulches will cushion the soil from the pressure of heavy rain and protect it from erosion. In situations where you can’t mulch — in a newly seeded bed, for example — use a sheet of burlap or other porous cloth to prevent surface compaction. Row cover tunnels cause raindrops to shatter and disperse before they reach the soil, so such covers prevent surface compaction, too.

Permanent Garden Bed Options
Garden experts talk mostly about raised beds, but they are not essential and can be expensive to build. Our point here is that rather than plowing or tilling your entire plot each year, it’s better to lay out and tend permanent areas for dedicated beds and paths. The beds can be raised if you are in a rainy climate, or sunken if your site is dry and windy. Flat beds are also fine, with markers to distinguish the beds from the paths.

If you do choose raised beds, framing is optional. The plants will grow just as well in unframed beds, although you’ll probably need to do a bit of rebuilding each spring. Framing does make the beds look sharp, but lumber for framing can be expensive. Low-cost or free options such as logs or recycled cedar fence rails work fine — just lay them along the long sides of your beds. No need to enclose the ends; if you leave them open it will be easier to adjust the beds’ positions if you need to in the future:

Many gardeners like framed garden beds because they can use the frames to support or anchor row covers, plastic, bird netting or other protective covers. For example, pipe brackets installed on the outside of wood-framed raised garden beds can be used to hold the ends of hoops made of wire or plastic pipe, or the ends of wire hoops can be pushed into the ground just inside the frames to provide a firm anchor. The trend toward more extensive use of protective covers is so prominent that many gardeners regard bed framing materials primarily as structural foundations for tunnels or plastic-covered boxes that do the work of small greenhouses.

Improving Soil Fertility
Every soil has an innate texture based on the size of indigenous soil particles. Clay particles are small, so clay soil feels slippery when wet. Sandy soils have much larger particles, so they feel gritty. The tiny size of clay particles means the spaces between them are small, too. In comparison, the spaces between sand particles are huge. To increase the sponginess of either type of soil and prepare it for the task of growing vegetables, a thorough digging is in order to incorporate spaces for air and organic matter, such as grass clippings or compost.

After starting new gardens in several different states, I have yet to encounter soil that was not vastly improved by deep digging in the garden’s first two years, with constant inputs of compost and mulch to raise its organic matter content. With time, the soil’s most important component evolves — a dynamic community of bacteria, fungi and insects. These soil critters exude natural glues and enzymes that bind soil and organic matter particles, creating loamy structure (tilth). After five years of thoughtful organic management, any soil should show notably improved structure, with a profile of 50 percent indigenous soil particles; 25 percent pore spaces for air, water and roots; and 25 percent biosphere of bacteria, fungi, earthworms and other life-forms that call your garden home.

This biosphere is crucial because it’s what improves your soil structure, and it’s the means through which most plants get essential nutrients. Of particular interest are a talented group of soil-dwelling fungi that form dynamic relationships with plant roots. These fungi, collectively known as mycorrhizal fungi, form colonies around plant roots that enhance a plant’s ability to take up nutrients and water, and increase the plant’s resistance to soil-borne diseases. 

 

Conservation Cultivation

Cultivation has the unfortunate side effect of ravaging beneficial fungal colonies, so when you cultivate your garden beds is important. For example, turning up and shattering spadefuls of soil in fall destroys colonies of many beneficial fungi, and they won’t have time to recover before cold winter weather ends their season of active growth. As a result, spring crops get planted into soil that’s in microbial disarray. The story changes if you stop short of cultivating when cleaning up beds in fall, and instead either plant a cold-hardy cover crop, such as hairy vetch or cereal rye, or cover the soil’s surface with a winter mulch. These are the preferred methods for conserving healthy populations of beneficial fungi, including strains that help legumes capture and accumulate nitrogen, the main nutrient plants need for vigorous new growth.

After coaxing along permanent garden beds with infusions of organic matter for a few years, most gardeners will switch from deep digging to cultivation methods that are less traumatic to the soil’s structure. Shallow cultivation at the surface is often needed to prepare seed beds, mix in organic fertilizers or control weeds. In a small garden, this can easily be done with a sharp hoe, and in a big garden, with a tiller set to go no more than 4 inches deep.

A more vexing problem often lurks below ground, as natural forces will cause the soil in permanent beds to gradually compact and form a “hardpan.” As water percolates downward, fine soil particles will accumulate where drainage slows, much as fine soil remains in your sink after you wash vegetables. This hardpan is known in Australia as “hostile subsoil” — a good phrase to describe subsoil that drains too slowly and is too tight to be penetrated by plant roots.

Research done by cooperating farmers at Cornell University’s Reduced Tillage in Vegetables Project has found that cutting a narrow slit one to two inches below the hardpan layer is the least destructive way to restore the drainage capacity of compacted subsoil, which in turn boosts plant productivity. In a small raised bed, you can do this using a digging fork. In larger gardens, a broadfork is the best tool for preventing or relieving compacted subsoil.

MOTHER EARTH NEWS first published plans to build your own broadfork in 1980. The broadfork has since been embraced by many organic gardeners as the best way to reintroduce air to the deepest sections of a permanent bed without tearing up the soil’s structure and thus setting back the soil-building process. Along with air, soil amendments such as compost, wood ashes or organic fertilizers will naturally sift into deep holes made by a broadfork.

I use a broadfork often, but in my clay soil, it isn’t entirely able to take the place of deep digging to mix in organic matter and a fresh supply of air. I try to limit my forking or digging frenzies to warm weather — for example, when renovating beds after I’ve harvested garlic and cool-season spring crops. Soil recovers faster from digging under warm conditions, and nutrients released as the shredded fungal mycelium and roots decompose can be utilized by the next crop.

When you keep garden walkways in vegetation or mulch while minimizing cultivation in adjoining beds, you’re practicing what is called “zone tillage.” Walkways become refuge areas for night crawlers and other soil-building creatures, while the beds get cultivated only as much as needed to accommodate changing crops. Even compacted pathways can host numerous earthworms as long as there is vegetation or mulch at the surface. In a 10-year study done in West Lafayette, Ind., earthworm counts under pathways planted with a bluegrass-clover mixture averaged 400 per cubic meter, compared with 340 in an open dairy pasture and only 20 in a no-till field planted in continuous corn. Another study from Germany showed that soil compaction had little effect on the production of earthworm castings. Rather, having plenty of rich vegetation at the soil surface — either as mulch or mowed greens — will transform pathways into earthworm havens.

Recently I heard a soil-minded gardener joke that growing cauliflower takes about five years — four for soil-building and one to grow the crop. He was right, because cauliflower and many other veggies won’t prosper in low-integrity soil. Growing in wisely nurtured and maintained permanent garden beds guarantees better results, season after season.

Read more: You can learn more about how to manage your soil’s food web in Barbara Pleasant’s book The Complete Compost Gardening Guide. 

Spent Hens Get Spared

With yesterday being Valentine's Day and all, we thought it would be appropriate to use this opportunity to make a very public lovenote to a bunch of spent hens in the North Country and to send out word that we're coming to swoop them away, Prince Charming-style.

There are more than 280 million egg-laying hens in the United States confined to battery cages — small wire cages stacked in tiers and lined up in rows inside warehouses. In accordance with the USDA's recommendation to give each hen four inches of 'feeder space,' hens are commonly packed four to a cage measuring 16 inches wide.

Because egg-laying chicken breeds have been genetically selected exclusively for maximum egg production, they don't grow fast or large enough to be raised profitably for meat. Therefore, male chicks of egg-laying breeds are of no economic value, and they are discarded on the day they hatch.

The female birds' confined space doesn't allow the ladies to stretch their wings or legs, and they cannot fulfill normal behavioral patterns or social needs like scratching in the dirt, chasing bugs, and taking extremely adorable, endearing dust baths:



As you can imagine, constantly rubbing against the wire cages means these birds lose a lot of feathers; and it's not uncommon for the ladies to have lots of bruises and abrasions. In order to reduce injuries resulting from excessive pecking—a behavior that occurs when confined hens are bored, stressed, or frustrated—most (but not all) laying hens have part of their beaks cut off.

Laying more than 250 eggs in one year, a laying hen's body is severely taxed (whose wouldn't be?!). They suffer from "fatty liver syndrome" and "cage layer fatigue"; and, percentage-wise, after about a year most hens in the egg industry are considered "spent" and sent to slaughter. The hens who did nothing but lay eggs usually end up in soups, pot pies, dog food, or similar low-grade chicken meat products.

But the truth is, these hens don't have to be spent! So we've linked up through a liaison with a local egg farm that has thousands of laying hens. And we've been told we're welcome to as many spent hens as we want.

While we certainly can't house them all, we expect to take 20 birds into custody at Better Farm. The hens will be welcome to come and go as they please in the grass, brush, and dirt on the property (living and playing outside for the first time!), laying eggs only if they feel like it. They'll have plenty of room to flap their wings, squawk, devour worms and bugs, and experience all the lovely North Country has to offer.

Oh, Baby!

Green baby photo from Eco-Snobbery Sucks.

The Environmental Working Group recently sent this information along about eco-friendly, health-concious baby items. Some great product ideas for the next baby shower you go to—or the next time you want to try something all-natural out for your little one!
Toys

• Natural wood teething ring 
• Wood mobile 
• Organic Pack N Play sheet 
• Sand play set

Clothes

• Organic onesies 
• Organic footie pajamas 
• Organic booties 
• Organic hat 
• Organic swaddlers 
• Organic baby sling

Feeding

• Glass baby bottles: plain, or with a silicone sleeve 
• Organic cotton nursing pads 
• Manual baby food processor 
• Organic bibs

Diapers

• Organic cloth diapers 
• Environmentally friendly disposable diapers 
• Organic cloth baby wipes

Baby's Personal Care Products

• California Baby brand creams, washes, and more 
• Badger baby balm

Got a great, green product you'd like to share? E-mail us at info@betterfarm.org.

Macsherry Library Art Show Features Our Work!

We told you last week about Macsherry Library's Ninth Annual Heart of Winter Art Show & Chocolate Festival, the reception for which was held from 1:30 to 5 p.m. Saturday at the Macsherry Library Community Gallery in Alexandria Bay, N.Y.

Among the featured work was my above nighttime photograph, and this piece by our own Maylisa Daniels:

These pieces, as well as all the other paintings, drawings, poems, and three-dimensional pieces, will be on display through Saturday, Feb. 18. Be sure to stop in and take a look—and don't be shy about buying a few pieces to take home with you!

The Saturday afternoon reception was packed—with people, with art, with chocolate, and with younger children working diligently on making their own Valentines Day cards. Here are photos from the event:

We can't wait to team up with Macsherry Library again from 1-5 p.m. May 12 for their Garden Day! That event will offer free seeds, catalogs, information, and master gardeners for guidance—and reps from Better Farm and betterArts working with kids on planting seeds, painting some faces, and bridging the gap between cultivation and creativity in order, literally, to cultivate creativity. Stay tuned for details!


Many thanks to Sue-Ryn Burns for putting this event together! Macsherry Library is located at 112 Walton St. in Alexandria Bay, N.Y.

This Week in News

GMO foods alter organ function, Nicaragua takes a stab at energy independence, NASA finds a huge crack in an Antarctic glacier, and Rick Santorum swears he's never bought the "hoax" of global warming. Happy Friday!

• GMOs, organ function, and cancer causality: In the video above, "Health Ranger" Mike Adams explains how studies in cell research have demonstrated the mechanism by which micro RNA from genetically engineered foods may alter organ function in humans (more info here).
• Nicaragua goes for energy independence: Oil accounts for 70 percent of Nicaragua's power generation, which means the economy takes a kick every time international petroleum prices soar. And despite having the poorest economy in Central America, Nicaragua has the highest energy costs. The country is meeting this issue head-on, with the Sandinista government focusing on renewable energy in order to reduce dependence on foreign oil, and to help bring electrification, development and progress to the countryside. Administration officials say it will do so in a way that protects the environment, by deterring deforestation and reducing harmful emissions. Presidential adviser Paul Oquist, an academic and leading voice on Sandinista development policy, says that renewable energy policy is key to providing citizen security, labor stability, peace and development in the country. (From the Christian Science Monitor)
• NASA spies 18-mile "crack" in Antarctic glacier: NASA reported footage of a glacial crack larger than Manhattan that's apparently growing. In the next few months, ABC reported, scientists expect the glacier to create an iceberg about 350 square miles in area. It will probably float northward, melting as it goes. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland sent an expedition called Operation IceBridge to Antarctica in October in an old DC-8 jetliner, modified for scientific operations. It spotted the break in the ice. Earth-observing satellites have been watching it since.
• Rick Santorum vs. a Coherent Energy Policy: Here are a few choice quotes from presidential candidate Rick Santorum's speech Monday at the Colorado Energy Summit: "We were put on this earth as creatures of God to have dominion over the earth, to use it wisely but for our benefit, not the earth’s benefit.” ... “We are intelligent beings…we should not let the vagaries of nature destroy what we have helped to create.”  Santorum also said the claim that climate change is man-made is a quote “...hoax…an absolute travesty of scientific research that was motivated by those who saw this as an opportunity to create panic and crisis - for government to be able to step in and even more greatly control your life.”  ...  “I for one understand from science that there are a hundred factors that influence the climate. To suggest that one minor factor of which man’s contribution is a minor factor of a minor factor - is the determining ingredient in the sauce that affects the entire global warming and cooling, is just absurd on its face.” Read more here. 

Got a great news bite you'd like to share? E-mail it to us at info@betterfarm.org.

DIY Pheasant Rearing

New York State's Day-Old Pheasant Program distributes 46,496 day-old pheasant chicks to qualified applicants across the state who agree to raise the baby birds to eight weeks of age and then release them. We'd like to get Better Farm involved, which means we have to construct a fly pen for the pheasants and create other crucial accommodations. To make the research part simpler for those of you also interested in getting with the program, here's a handy outline of what we've learned about raising these beautiful birds.

(Editor's Note: To ensure their best chance of survival in the wild, it's very important to give pheasants PLENTY of natural surroundings to grow up in (brush, grash, bushes, branches)—and to release them no later than when they're eight weeks old.)

Brooding

Baby pheasants! Photo from BackyardChickens.com.

The brooder house for pheasant chicks should be weather tight, free from drafts and rodent proof. It can be designed for the birds or part of another building that can have a penned-in portion.

Young pheasants are very delicate and your brooder must be set up correctly or you may encounter problems. Clean and disinfect your brooder house at least two weeks before the chicks arrive. The best litter to use on the floor is chopped straw. Pheasants seem to like to eat wood shavings. If the chicks have access to wood shavings, they will eat them and die. Sand or newspaper is not recommended as litter. If brooder paper (a coarse, rough paper that allows chicks to keep their footing) is not available at your feed store, burlap works very well also. Do not use newspaper as the chicks will not be able to get a firm footing. Remember to remove the burlap or brooder paper after the chicks are about one week old.

Heat Lamps
Heat lamps are the easiest to use. Be sure to have at least one 250 Watt infrared bulb for each 100 chicks you plan on starting. Make sure to get the bulb with a red end, as it won't be so bright and will help control cannibalism. Hang the heat lamp from the ceiling, about 18 inches from the floor to the bottom of the lamp.

Ring/Draft Shield
Use a ring or draft shield to confine the chicks for the first 5-7 days the chicks are in the brooder. Cardboard about 14-18 inches high can be bent to make a ring or circle. A kiddy pool will work too! A circle with a diameter of 4 feet will be sufficient for 50 chicks (with the heat lamp in the center). This shield helps cut down on the drafts on the floor.

Your brooder house should be big enough to allow 3/4 of a square foot per bird. Pheasants tend to be very cannibalistic, so don't overcrowd them.

Use at least one 2-foot long feeder for each 50 chicks. Also, 1 one-gallon waterer for each 75 chicks. Use a waterer with a narrow lip (1/2 inch or less) or fill the water trough with marbles so the chicks can't drown.

From the time chicks arrive until they are six weeks old, they should be fed a 30% protein medicated gamebird or turkey starter feed. The best medicated started feed contains 1 lb. Amprolium (a coccidiostat) per ton of feed. The feed should be in crumble form.

Introducing Chicks to Their New Home
When the chicks arrive, remove them from the box, dip their beaks in the water, and put them under the heat lamp. Most losses occur because the chicks do not start to eat or drink. Never let your chicks run out of feed or water. The chicks should form a circle around the heat lamp. If the chicks bunch up directly under the heat lamp they are cold. Lower the lamp, and add more bulbs, or further draft-proof your brooder house. If the chicks spread out too far away from the brooder and pant, etc...they are too hot - turn off one of the bulbs, raise the heat lamp, and perhaps open a window during hot weather.
Inspect the chicks often during the first week - especially at night during the first few nights. Chicks often die from piling (from being too cold) during the first or second night.

After the chicks are 2 or 3 weeks old it is a good idea to allow the chicks to range outside during the daytime. Wait for a warm sunny day and open the brooder house door into the pen. The pen must be covered and enclosed with one inch hole chicken wire to prevent the chicks from escaping. The pen should be large enough to allow 1 - 2 square feet per bird. Drive the chicks back into the house late each afternoon. Continue to turn the heat on each afternoon. Discontinue operating your heat lamp during the day once the chicks spend each day outside. Continue to turn the heat on each night until they are 3-4 weeks old (depending on how cold it is outside). After the birds are 4-5 weeks old, they will need a bigger pen. You should always be on the lookout for cannibalism. The first evidence you will see will be blood on the wing tips and tails of some of the smaller birds. Don't expect it to just go away—instead, it will just get worse. Add branches and alfalfa hay to the pen for the birds to peck at and play on - this will help. You may have to trim the top beaks on your birds to curtail the problem. A pair of fingernail clippers will do - trim far enough back just so it bleeds a little. This can be done as early as 2 weeks old and may have to be repeated. 

Pheasant Pen

Sample pheasant pen. From www.ohiodnr.com.

One of the most expensive requirements on a game bird farm are covered pens. It is important to build your pens in such a way that they will do what they are supposed to do. ie keep the birds in and predators out. Other considerations are 1) cost 2) long life 3) ease of construction 4) resistance to bad weather. Below is a covered pen that incorporates many of these desirable characteristics. 

Basic Layout

• A pen of 144' x 96' conforms to two rolls of toprite and can hold 700 hens with peepers, or 500 cocks with peepers, or 600 hens and cocks with peepers.
• Pheasants require 25 square feet of pen space per bird for proper flying. Building a bigger pheasant pen is better than building one too small.
• Keep building costs to a minimum by price shopping for new materials or reusing chicken wire, fencing and lumber.
• Use pressure treated lumber or locust for the main posts. Choose materials that are resistant to bad weather and outdoor durable.
• Locate the pheasant pen in an area with adequate shelter and shade access. The more natural cover available, the safer young pheasants will feel, which results in less cannibalism.
  Design the pen with gates or doors of sufficient width and height to allow for easy feeding, watering and catching of young chicks. 
  

Posts
These posts should be set equidistant from each other around the perimeter of the pen. It works out that the posts should be 12 feet apart. The posts should be 10' long. They should go into the ground 3' and extend 7'.

Wire
The four sides of the pen should be covered with galvanized-after-weaving wire - 1" mesh - either 18 or 20 gauge. This wire should be buried at least 6" and flared to the outside underground. This prevents animals from digging down under the pen. The wire should extend up to the sides of the pen to the tops of the posts.

#9 Wire
A standard #9 galvanized wire should be strung around the top of the poles around the perimeter of the pen. Another strand of #9 wire should be strung the length of the pen equidistant from the two sides. Two #9 wires should be strung widthwise splitting the pen in thirds. These #9 wires will support the roof. The poles to which the #9 wires is attached should have "dead-man" poles for support. This will prevent the poles from pulling in.

Toprite
Over the top of this grid put two connected rolls of 150' x 50' toprite netting. The netting should be connected to the four corners first to make sure it is square. It should be pulled over the edges and attached to both the #9 wire and to the wire sides. DO NOT attach the netting to the #9 wire running through the pen. You should hog-ring the #9 wire to the toprite in the inside of the pen about every 5' to prevent ripping in the wind. At the junction of the #9 wire in the middle of the pen, put brace posts made of 2" x 4" material. They should be tall enough (10 to 12 ft.) to make the pen tent-like in appearance. On the top of the 2" x 4" add a screw-in eyehook, run the #9 wire through, then close the eyehook. This pen is designed to be lowered in case of wet snow or icy conditions. In case of foul weather, simply take down the 2" x 4" poles and let the toprite down. Even with the birds inside, they will move to the edges of the pen. This pen is economical as you have fewer posts and #9 wire then most pen designs. I purposely avoided the subject of gates, feeding, watering or catching birds, as each farm has is own situations.

Building Instructions

• Build the pheasant pen frame by placing 10 foot long treated posts 3 feet into the ground, about 12 feet apart. Place the posts equally distant from each other, making sure there are posts at all corners, both sides of the door frames and in the center of each side.
• Dig a trench around the base of the pen between each of the set posts, about 6 inches deep and 6 inches wide.
• Lay the first layer of galvanized wire into the trench, flaring out 2 or 3 inches at the bottom. Fill in the trench with dirt. This prevents predators from burrowing under the fence to get inside the pen.
• Extend the galvanized fencing around the fence up to the top of the posts.
• Around the perimeter of the top of the posts, lay #9 wire fencing over the tops like an edging. Lay several pieces across the pen width for top netting support.
• Place one or two brace posts on the inside of the pen like tent poles. Use 10- to 12-foot lumber or shorter lengths in areas with lots of snow and ice load.
• Lay game bird netting across the top of the pen to prevent birds from escaping. Connect the netting to the corner posts first for a snug fit and then lay the remainder. Attach the netting to the #9 wire on the inside with hog rings to prevent ripping in high winds.
• Strips of burlap approximately 10 inches by 20 inches or
  similar material hung randomly throughout the pen will help reduce injuries.

Information gleaned from MacFarlane Pheasants, Inc., ehow.com, GardenWeb.com.

To learn more about our adventures with pheasants, check out this link:
The Freeing of the Pheasants  

The Art of Regrowth

Image/Squidoo

Why should your cans, plastic, and paper have all the fun? If you've got a sunny south-facing window in your home, you can recycle the otherwise discarded parts of many everyday pieces of produce to regrow delicious scallions, potatoes, and even mangoes. Check out the tutorials referenced below for full information on having an indoor garden all year round.

(Editor's note: When regrowing any of the below-listed items, be sure to use only organic plants. Non-organic plants not guaranteed to grow. But consider that if you buy one organic piece of produce, such as an onion, each time you regrow it you're getting your money back!)

•  Scallions: Did you know scallions will regrow indefinitely in a glass of water on your kitchen counter? Lifehacker recently posted the following:

If you like to cook with scallions (aka green onions or green shallots), did you know you can keep the white root ends from purchased scallions in a glass of water and they will regrow almost indefinitely? Household weblog Homemade Serenity shares how scallion ends can regrow in in a glass of water. Just put the root ends in a glass of water and put that glass in a sunny window. After a few days you should be able to begin harvesting the green ends of the scallions. Make sure you change the water every so often and cut what you need with scissors before cooking.

• Potatoes Got an old potato that's started sprouting eyes? Click here to learn how to turn that into a whole new plant.
• Onions  Instead of tossing those onion bottoms into the compost heap, why not grow your own fresh onions out of them? You can theoretically create an endless supply of onions without ever having to buy bulbs or seeds—check out how over at Instructables.com. You can also regrow onions in a simple glass of water—click here to learn how.

If you like those, here are a few more ideas for re-growing food right on your kitchen counter (from Cornell's "Trash Goes to School" instructable).

• White Potato in Soil: Take a white potato that is showing "eyes" and cut a section that includes an eye (about 1 square inch). Place it in a pot of moist soil, about 2" deep. Keep the plant moist but do not "drown" it. Field potatoes are planted this way. 
• Sweet Potato in Water: In the middle of a sweet potato, stick 3 to 4 toothpicks evenly spaced. Place the potato in a glass of water and put it in a sunny window. Either end can be rooted. Keep the water level high, and after a week or more the potato will usually sprout roots and vine-like stems and leaves. At this point, you need to replant the potato into a pot with soil. 
• Carrot Top in Water: Cut about 1" - 1 1/2" off the top of 4 to 6 carrots. Fill a shallow bowl 2/3 full of washed pebbles (pebbles help support the tops.) Place the carrot tops over the pebbles. Add water to the level of the pebbles and maintain this level at all times. Soon the tops will sprout pretty foliage. 
• Pineapple in Water: To separate the top from the fruit, hold the fruit firmly with one hand and twist the leafy head with the other. The top should come right off. Remove the lower leaves until the stump is about 1 1/2" long. Put the top in a glass of water and change the water weekly. When roots are 3" to 4" long, transplant to a pot.

Plants from Seeds:

• Avocado Pits: Remove the pit from an avocado and allow it to dry for 2-3 days. Peel away as much of the onion-like skin as possible. One-third of the way down, inset four toothpicks at regular intervals. The flat end is the bottom and the pointed end is the top. Put the pit in a glass of water so that 1/2" of water covers the base of the pit. When the roots are 4" long, transplant the pit to a pot and keep it in a bright, warm window. Keep the soil evenly moist at all times. 
• Mini-Fruit Trees: Citrus plants can be grown from seeds removed from oranges, grapefruits, lemons, and tangerines. Soak the seeds overnight in water. Plant 1/2" in moist potting soil. Cover the pot with a plastic bag or a piece of plastic wrap, and put in a warm spot. When the seeds start to grow (in a few weeks), remove the plastic. Keep the plant in a warm, sunny window. 
• Beans, Peas, and Lentils: Soak dried beans, peas, or lentils overnight in warm water. Fill a pot 2/3 full with potting soil. Place three seeds on the top of the soil and cover with 1/2" of soil. Cover the pot with plastic wrap. After the seeds start to grow, remove the plastic. Put the plant in a warm, sunny window, and keep the soil evenly moist. It may be necessary to tie the plants to a small stake as they grow. 
• Herbs: Use anise, caraway, coriander, celery, dill, or fennel seed. Fill a 6" pot 2/3 full with moist potting soil. Place six seeds on top of the soil and cover with 1/2" of soil. Cover the pot with plastic wrap and place in a warm spot. After the seeds begin to grow (3-8 days), remove the plastic and place the plant in a sunny window. After a few weeks, you will have a lovely feathery foliage that can be snipped and used in cooking. 
• Peanuts: Make sure you use fresh, unroasted peanuts. Fill a large, 4" deep plastic bowl 2/3 full with moist potting soil. Shell four peanuts and place them on top of the soil, covering them with 1" of soil. The plant will sprout quickly. In a couple of months small, yellow, pealike flowers will develop along the lower part of the stem. After the flower fades, the ovary swells and starts to grow toward the ground and pushes into the soil. Peanuts will be ready to harvest in about six months.

Plants from Exotic Fruits:

• Mango: In the center of the mango, there is a large hairy husk with a pit in it. Scrape off all the excess flesh from the husk and gently pry open with a dull knife. The pit is best started in a sphagnum bag. Fill a Ziploc bag with dampened peat moss or sphagnum. Place the pit in the bag and make sure it is completely surrounded by moss. Check every day to make sure the pit is not dried out or rotted from too much moisture. When the roots are 4" long, transplant to a pot that is at least 1" larger than the pit. 
• Papaya: Papayas are not easy to grow because the plants have a tendency to dampen off (die) at about 6" tall. When you cut the papaya open, you will find hundreds of black seeds surrounded by a gelatinous aril (seed covering). To remove the aril, spread some seeds on a paper towel and roll them with your fingers until the aril squashes off. Plant the seeds immediately in a container with sterile potting soil. Give them bottom heat and high humidity until they pass the critical stage of 6" high. Papayas are rapid growers, and once they are established, they will not need a lot of water and fertilizer. 
• Tamarind: Tamarind pods look like brown lima beans. The outer shell is brittle and easily peels back, revealing a sticky, brown, pulp. Within this pulp there are five or six shiny black pits. Nick the pits (with a nail file) and soak them until they swell, usually in a few hours. Plant the pits in a container with potting soil and place in a sunny window. Tamarinds are water-loving plants and should never be allowed to dry out. As they grow, pinch them back to make the plant fuller.