[sheridan]

Ok, it's Spring. I really haven't minded my girls scratching everything to hell in the garden up till now, but now i'm thinking that unless I limit them to an hour free range before bed, I may not have much garden left. I do want to let them out (they are great at slug eating and i'm hoping they'll polish off my solomens seal sawfly this year) but they do tend to eat everything.

Last year, they avoided the following plants: golden feverfew, snapdragons, mints, oreganos, and thymes, and lady's mantle, but that's about it! They LOVED the elderberry tree.

Anyone got any other chicken / garden tips?

[dilsdaisy]

Sorry haven't got any tips but thanks for passing on your list of plants your lot didn't like... will make notes of that lot...we have moved house and have a new garden that needs planting up ( they have done a good job of clearing it so far ) and was wondering how to balance planted garden with free range chooks , thinking maybe a bigger run down the whole side of the garden with a bit of artistic planting to minimise its look, then like you say the odd hour of free ranging to do a bit of pest control....

Don't want to end up with a garden looking like Alcatraz, but want them to have some running room too ( maybe you can't have both?? )

[sheridan]

And hyssop, they hated that. It is meant to repel cats too! It does have lovely blue flowers as well.

[Alby]

My irls eat everything except the mints and herbs . They are  on my veg plot so I just fence evrything off with the green wind mesh,. which doubles as bug barrier as well 

[Lindeggs]

I've had to put bird mesh over a lot of the garden to keep the wild birds out, so I'm hoping it will keep the 'tame' birds out as well.  BUT even the wild birds soon learned how to stretch the mesh to get at the strawberries through it, and now they're taking a peck out of each tomato as it gets ripe. 

I have heard hens don't like tomato plants, but of course they love the fruit itself.

[sheridan]

I had tomatoes in pots last year and they left them alone, except for the cherry ones, which they would stretch up to peck off and then kick around the patio like footballs.
I can now report that mine eat pansies.
Another plant they won't eat: Hellebores, and astilbes.

[8doubles]

I find that even if the leaves are unpalatable the hens know that somewhere in the roots is a worm that needs to be excavated .

[Foghorn-Leghorn]

Mine won't touch geraniums - if you're thinking of doing some pots - but stripped fuschia and impatients back to virtual stumps.

No tomato was safe in the greenhouse up to a certain height - I used to see them clambering onto the big pots I plant my toms in, then jumping up to reach the higher ones.

They've left the lavender and rosemary alone but have dug a big moat around the base of each one this winter. 

I accept my garden will not look as pristine as other people's but mine is slug, snail and pest free and I get delicious eggs to boot so I think it's a reasonable trade off.   

[jinty1911]

Going to just stick to hanging baskets this year.  I had a few nice hanging tomatoes last year. No point in doing anything else. 

[Foghorn-Leghorn]

Going to just stick to hanging baskets this year.  I had a few nice hanging tomatoes last year. No point in doing anything else. 

It's probably the safest option.

I've had to get the other half to fence me some of the garden off around the greenhouse so I can grow veg and leave my greenhouse door open without the fear of feathery raiders scoffing the lot!

[sheridan]

Curry plant! I've just planted one and after a quick scratch around the roots, they left it alone. Likewise, Cotton Lavender. It seems to be the ones with strong smells they don't like.

[gibbo]

I built a pen last summer for my new girlys.  Unfortunatly i can not let them free renge around the garden as the neighbours dog is a chicken killer!  Any way when i built the pen i left some of the plants that i just couldnt find space to relocate and the one thing they would not touch was the snap dragons!

[sheridan]

Mine left the snapdragons too, after a quick peck. So there will be a lot of them this year....... I am planning on sunflowers, too, once they are big enough to put up with root disturbance. Even my biggest chicken can't reach the top of them! (although I have witnessed them using my son as a tool to reach high places before...... this afternoon they climbed on the trampoline with him. It was amusing, to say the least!)

[gibbo]

What is the opinions on blue bells?  I tried to get rid of them out of my pen but i seemed to have made them grow more vigorously!!  Are they bad for chickens ?  I dont think they are eating them just scratching the tops of them.