Medicinal Herb Gardening, Problems with Chickens and an Organic Vegetable Garden
Sue Gross shares her experiences with nesting chickens and a low water garden.
By Sue Gross
March/April 1974
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Hardy medicinal herbs like echinacea grow well with very little water.
PHOTO: FOTOLIA/ANTEROVIUM
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The story of our California farm -apart from our adventures with goats, which I've already recounted in the September/October 1973 issue of MOTHER EARTH NEWS- is sort of strange. When we moved here we had high hopes of raising organic vegetables and eggs, but the results of five years' work have to be grinned at and accepted as part of the learning of a new way of life.
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First, the nesting chicken report: My hen count is exactly four, and eggs are down to maybe one a day. One bird is setting and another spells her at times, yet between them they've broken two eggs with chicks half formed inside and two more have rotted and messed up the nest something terrible. Ever changed the straw in a box with a mad mama in it? Just try to get her out and the minute she does move the other dashes on. I leave them alone now and hope they work it out all right. Which one will get custody of any chick that's hardy enough to survive? All I can do is laugh and feed the poultry the best I know how.
Like the goats, the birds get apple cider vinegar at times, especially the babies, because the acid really gives them a boost and feathers them out much faster. I learned this with a batch of Leghorn-Cornish crosses I got as chicks. Unfortunately, only one survived a cat and a chicken-stealing dog.
Then there's the garden, a rather sad story. (I've got great gobs to learn.) We have three years' worth of goat manure and hay leavings in the half acre we set aside for organic vegetable gardening, and the crops grow well and taste fantastic. I could sell all I produce.
The main trouble is water. We get less than 20 inches of rain a year -all at once- and our tiny well was meant for household use only. Everyone who's lived here before has had to have water trucked in at the peak of the dry season (June through November).
