Edible gardeners want to eat what they grow. Chicken owners want happy egg-laying helpers. But happy, free-ranging chickens will mess up a veggie patch faster than you can say cotyledon.
And that is the conflict garden-growing chicken-owners face.
Thankfully, Free-Range Chicken Gardens, the new book by landscape designer and chicken expert Jessi Bloom, tells you how to have your cake and eat it to. (Chicken cake? Never mind, moving on.)
You could win this book!
Jessi sent me a review copy of the book so I would have a chance to read it before her virtual release party, happening today all over the interwebs*, and I’m so glad she did.
From Free Range Chicken Gardens I learned:
- How to train chickens to come when I call. Now six of our hens will run toward me at full-tilt when I say, “Hey, chook chook chook!” because they think I have sunflower seeds. The seventh, the really, really stupid one, gets confused and starts ba-gawking. (Note: six hens running straight at you will induce mild, Jurassic Park velociraptor flash-back panic every single time.)
- How to turn chickens into a moderately effective weed-controlling yard-crew with paddock-style fencing.
- How to use groundcover to discourage chickens from going places you don’t want.
- How terrifically hip and modern expanded metal mesh looks on a chicken coop.
The book provides a good overview on coop building styles and considerations, very basic chicken care info, do-grow/don’t-grow plant lists for the chicken garden and lots and lots of gorgeous inspirational pictures.
But for me, the most valuable thing Free-Range Chicken Gardens offers is insightful evaluation on how to design the coop, run and fencing so that it’s easier to make the chickens an active ally in the garden.
I wish Jessi had published this book last year, before we built our chicken coop. I would have done things a little differently in terms of incorporating paddock fencing into the design.
As it is, I think the advice in this book will really help us put the chickens to their all-around best use while keeping them happier and healthier in the process. It’ll just be a little more tricky to take full advantage of the wisdom now than it would have been a year ago.
People still thinking about getting chickens or upgrading your current coop, I highly recommend this book before you start to build. It’s got great ideas to ponder. Current flock owners, if you are struggling with how to get your chickens to eat the weeds and not the arugula, then this is the book for you, too.
Win a Free Copy, And More
Timber Press, the excellent publishing house for Free-Range Chicken Gardens, has apparently lost their mind and they are giving away free books all over the damn place.
They are giving away a copy of both Free-Range Chicken Gardens and The Fresh Egg Cookbook, which should inspire you with new ideas for what to do with all those backyard eggs.
Yeah, this one too.
To enter to win both books, leave a comment with either your most pressing chicken question (I’ll see if I can find a chicken expert to answer it for you), your funniest chicken story (make us laugh!), the number one reason other than eggs you want chickens (homemade feather bed?), or your favorite egg recipe (title/description is fine, you don’t need to type up the whole recipe).
Feel free to comment as much as you’d like, but only one entry per person will be counted and one winner will be chosen.
Entries will be accepted until Wednesday April 11, 8 PM PST. Winner will be announced on Thursday April 12th.
More Chances To Win
Timber Press isn’t just giving these books away on this blog, they’re also sponsoring a half-dozen identical giveaways around the virtual world. Which means…enter here and then start clicking around, because even if you don’t win the NW Edible giveaway, you might win one of the other ones.
Other bloggers will probably have different ways of entering, since we’re all doing this separately, so be sure to check what the other sites are looking for before going all cut-and-paste on this giveaway.
*You’ll find similtaneous book giveaway contests of Free-Range Chicken Gardens happening at:
Reminder: Urban Farms Magazine Subscription Giveaway
Also, if you haven’t yet entered yesterday’s giveaway (we’re giving away stuff right-and-left this week!), make sure to put your name in the hat to win a year’s subscription to Urban Farms Magazine by taking the Seed Starting Challenge (it’s easy!).
Bloggers, you can also link-up your favorite post on edible gardening or seed starting and be entered to win a (second, Northwest Edible-sponsored) subscription to Urban Farms Magazine too, if readers pick your post as their favorite!
Good luck, everyone.
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Oooh, interesting books. Sending international?? If not, doesn’t matter, I’ll just join in for fun:
My reason for wanting chickens (besides eggs, poo & scrap eating) is companionship in the garden. Now the neighbours don’t think I am the crazy lady talking to herself in the garden. They think I am the crazy lady talking to her chickens in the garden!
I think my favorite recipe is angel food cake -uses a lot of eggs and taste great. I would love to learn how to have my chickens come to me-sounds like a great book!
The main reason we got chickens was for fresh eggs. Since we were in the city, and didn’t know what the heck we were doing, we bought Silkies. No where in my research before we bought did it say that Silkies don’t lay very well. We thought got a chicken, you get eggs. Now it has turned into, the Silkies are my show birds, LOL.
Count me in! I don’t know what my funniest chicken story is, I mean, those feather heads are always doing something dumb. Although, I would have to say it was when they escaped the back yard (pre-fence) and were wandering down the street harassing the neighbors. The best part was when my neighbor from the “old country” just grabbed one of them by their feet, flipped her upside down, and tossed her over the fence. Surprisingly, chickens are like cats and almost always land on their feet!
As for a recipe, I am a sucker for eggs benedict made with bacon and homegrown eggs. You just don’t get a poached egg or hollandaise sauce like those from homegrown fresh eggs. **Drool**
And why have chickens? Besides eggs of course, there is the 24/7 entertainment and garden fun. And those girls are the best bed tillers I ever had! Unfortunately, they think they are supposed to till up my beds even after they are planted… I haven’t nailed that one in Chicken Training 101 yet…. But I do love those girls!
When our chickens were pullets and were getting acclimated to free range garden chicken-hood we lost one of our girls for 4 days. We looked everywhere. The neighbor kids circled the block with us and we knocked on lots of doors, but found nothing. On day 4 after lots searching, crying, and feeling as though all hope was lost, my husband found her. Where was she? In our yard the entire time. It was a miracle really. She had jumped on a stack of pots and they overturned with her inside. The opening was now up against the house. This happened in one of the shadiest nooks in the garden on some very hot days. We never heard her even though we walked by so many times. It was dark in the pots and she was asleep the entire time. My husband had just happened to grab those pots while he was planting a grape vine and there she was. Mrs. Henrietta Kensington was weak and wobbly from dehydration, but other than that she was perfectly fine. She just thought that night had lasted an unusually long time! The next day she was running laps around the yard to build her strength back up (seriously!) and she is now the toughest and most industrious of our girls. No bug is safe with her on the hunt.
I guess that shows the value of a three day nap. I wonder if I could lock myself inside a clay pot for a while?
Pick me! Pick me!! 😉 I’m itching to get some chickens soon. We want them for eggs and meat of course, but the pest control help will be fabulous. Our land is overrun with grasshoppers & we want to keep them OUT of our garden! And as for fave egg recipes… my husband is living proof that real men DO eat quiche – it’s a huge favorite in our house.
Second the velociraptor panic! Yet I want to train my chickens, as I have trained all things dog. It’s my nature. That’s pretty high on my chicken question list. As is when to switch foods, from starter to grower (everyone has a different opinion), and does it really matter?
Oh my, after 30 years of having chickens I have so many stories, I wish at least one would come to mind at this moment. So I’ll just say that my favorite way to have my eggs is just the simplest, poached. Thank you for participating and giving us a chance to some good books.
I have to go with Angel Food Cake too, cause it makes use of so many of our eggs…but I love deviled eggs too, as well as egg in the holes. 🙂
As for a funny chicken story…I’ll just direct you to my hubby’s blog post, cause he tells it so much better than I could. 🙂
http://scroungeman.blogspot.com/2012/01/super-chicken.html
Yahoo! The NYTimes published an article about homegrown chicken-keeping and cooking with so many eggs, including a reference to The Fresh Egg Cookbook. Both these books look great. My most pressing chicken question: How can I get some? I live in a suburban neighborhood really close to “the country” whose HOA says “no poultry.” What is the typical reason for establishing this rule, and how can I (politely) convince them to make an exception?
Great giveaway you gals have scratched up Happy to share and I pined you blog to Blogs I Follow so your getting repined as I post this …
I do not really know anything about the chicken, or very little, but I love eggs: I like the cream, frittata, scrambled eggs, I love pretty much all the recipes with eggs! Thanks great giveaway!
We went vegan, then got chickens. Yeah, it’s all about the poop! My garden is very happy to reap the rewards. 🙂
My main reason for wanting chickens is because I miss them. I had chickens and I loved them so much. I love the eggs and their silliness.
Lets see…we currently have 7 layers and 9 new pullets and are looking at 1) expanding our current chicken run (the coop is big enough already given our Mansion building last year) and 2) incorporating smarter gardening into the backyard to accommodate the chickens when they’re out and about while encouraging them not to trash everything 🙂 So, this offer looks as though it might just be perfect! Thank you for hosting this giveaway!
I can’t wait to start raising my own chickens and eggs – well I can dream! Thanks for the great information 🙂
We are always entertained by our chickens-who needs TV? We love the fresh eggs, fertilizer, BUG PATROL, and manure spreading (we also have a dairy cow, so the girls-in search of fly larva-spread the manure for us on our pasture!).
Sadly, I just lost all 9 of my girls last Saturday (foxes/coyotes?) We live in metropolitan area, it was daytime and they were free-ranging in the yard. We had gone for a bit and returned to feathers everywhere and 5 dead hens (I’m assuming the others 4 were carried away). So devastating …. but I am already planning to rebuild my flock.
It might have been racoons or hawks as well. So sorry to hear about your loses. That is one of the biggest problems we had when raising chickens on the farm. So heart breaking.
This is great! My FAVORITE egg recipe is Cheese Baked Eggs. There is nothing more decadent than eggs, cream and cheese.
sounds yummy!!!!
We have 4 hens that we let free range around our yard when we’re home. I love watching them–they love to all take dirt baths together, so you’ll look over and see a pile of chickens all fluffing themselves, which is pretty sweet. My favorite egg recipe may be homemade Caesar Salad dressing. Coddle a couple of eggs, blend in the food processor with some anchovies, ground mustard, garlic, salt, pepper, worcestershire sauce, & lemon juice, then slowly add olive oil until it gets creamy. Toss with some romaine lettuce and top with shaved parmesan & homemade croutons. It is so much better than any non-fresh dressing and super easy to make!
What a great giveaway! The biggest question I have about raising chickens is: Since I live in an area that gets feet of snow in the winter, what coop design is the suggestef for giving the chickens the best shelter and for keeping them safe? Thank you!
I just applied for an apartment where I could finally have chickens. I’m excited yet nervous about finally getting to join the chicken-keeping party! I am looking forward to chicken poo manure for the garden, and watching the chickens do their chicken things. This book would be great to get before I start building their new coop.
Btw, I also think herd of birds, particularly waterbirds on land, look like dinosaurs. Flash-back-city!
We want chickens for our gardens (pest control, poop) and I can’t wait to use the eggs in my home bakery!
I’m just concerned about the extremes in our weather – I’m in TX, so summers mean over 100 for months at a time, and winter it can get down into the 20s. How do I protect them during these extreme temperature swings? We want to get Araucanas, Wynettes, buff orpingtons, and maybe RRs. I have heard conflicting things about using heaters in the winter and how to warm them up without possibly burning down the coop.
My most pressing chicken question is when my chicks can go outside? They currently live in the garage under a heat lamp and are getting a lot of feathers. I got them on St Patrick’s day when they were 3 days old and I’m just wondering do you have to wait the full 2 months? Shorter? Longer because of the Seattle weather?
We used to gradually get the chicks used to being outside once they were a month old and had gained most of their adult feathers. We would try to get them outside of the barn during the warmest part of the day (usually 12-2pm) for a few hours and then hustle them back in to rest. I seem to recall on rainy days when they were younger we kept them inside the barn, but with the door open. Always had a lamp on if they wanted to go over and warm themselves up.
I’ve been wanting to check out that book… please pick me!
We have a play kitchen outside for our two boys (ages 2 and 4 at the time). I hear them bustling around, “making chicken.” They call me out to eat what they have made, gesturing towards the play kitchen. And I look through the plexiglass on the oven door to see a very patient, though thoroughly annoyed hen looking back out at me. Baked chicken. She was the only one not amused.
OMG that’s priceless!! LOL.
That is so funny! I can see yours boys doing it too!
I think my favorite way to enjoy a backyard egg is over medium on toast. It’s simple and delicious.
The number one main reason I want chickens are because they are sooo darn cute! I love to sit and watch their antics for hours. I have a garden but no chickens of my own….YET!
My funniest chicken story goes to when I was a kid. My then stepfather had farmers on both his mother’s and father’s side. We’d go to visit his grandfather and visit the baby piggies, cows, and chickens. Well, I was fairly young, maybe 4 or 5 I believe. Papa had all sorts of colors of chickens and I’d seen them all growing up in Nebraska. Only, I’d never seen a black chicken, not once. So, I was fascinated with it. Papa, noticed and told me that black chickens tasted better than all the rest of the chickens but, there was only one way to catch them! You had to sprinkle salt on it’s tail and it would slow down enough for me to catch her and bring her i for supper! LOL So, as you can imagine I spent forever trying to chase the chicken! For a couple of years I always chased the chicken! Until the last year…..when for some reason I cannot recall, I ended up with most of the coop chasing me! Never chased a chicken again! 😀
Six of my chickens are disciplined, two are not. I need them all to run over when I call, but I don’t know how to teach them! I want to win Jessi’s book, I know it will prove to be very helpful.
I would love for my children to grow up with chickens but I have it a hurtle, apparently its ok for those in a big city to have chickens but where I live (a little town in north Idaho) if you live in town they are not allowed if you have less than an acher. I am hoping to talk with the city to see if I can have a few. As the ordnance reads right now I can’t even have rabbits, which I also want. What would you suggest if my country town won’t let me have more than a dog and cat? It will be so sad 🙁
Dress the chickens and rabbits like dogs and cats. If we can dress dogs and cats like rabbits, and whatnot, why not chickens. I know most towns don’t like the idea of all these animals running around their yards because of the the noise and smell. Ask them for a trial run varience in the rules.
I would love to have not only fresh eggs, but tick, earwig, Junebug eating machines in my backyard! Am sooo tired of picking ticks off the cats, the chickens could eat the ticks, and provide entertainment for the cats! (who really are a bunch of wimps, the chickens may scare them to death…..)
# 1 reason we want chickens other than eggs = poop. it’s not glorious, but it’s honest.
What a fabulous giveaway. My favorite egg recipe is Deviled Eggs.
I live in ticky woods in North Carolina. I do want chickens for eggs, for manure to add to the compost pile, and to use as chicken tractors, but I know they can also help control ticks. I probably have a relative of Lyme disease (STARI) that is common in the Southeast and for which there is no test. I’m having trouble keeping ticks off my dogs and cat. Ticks are a pressing concern, but it’s hard to narrow it down to one reason for having chickens–they are so useful, and beautiful too! (And I need information on building a coop!)
I really need this book. I don’t have chickens now, but I have been thinking about getting some. I’m just afraid I don’t know how to care for them. Please count me in.
Besides eggs & poop, I think chickens would be fun companions to have around when I’m outside working in the garden. They make me smile, and who couldn’t use more of that?
My first encounter with chickens was when my grandma sent me to the store ( 2 building away from her house) to get a live chicken that she wanted to keep in her backyard. I went like a good girl, 4 or 5 years old, the man turned the hen upside down and told me to hold her by her feet…… going back home the chicken started to flip her wing really hard, I got scared and let her go, started to run and the chicken following me running and flipping…. she followed inside the house until she saw my grandmother ..then she laid down…Grandma said “I see you brought the hen home” she was laughing.
Now almost 60 years later I want to start a new relationship with the chickens…. (thanks to my daughters and son in law, they promised me that they will help with the care and expenses)
Do you think that I may get new friends?
we are keeping chickens for the first time. i told a friend i have a love/hate relationship with them, but have concluded i have a want to like/do not like relationship with them. i am much more uncomfortable around them than i thought. it has been slowly changing into an enjoyable experience, day by day, which has been quite fun.
Is it weird that besides the fresh eggs the number one reason I’d like to have urban chickens is for another pet?
Fingers crossed I’m a winner!!!
Ooh, cool book! I love to use my roosters to till my gardens in early spring. They eat all the weeds, plow, and fertilize for free! Hoping to get some hens soon.
I’m so glad I noticed this book from your facebook post! I was going to start constructing my first chicken coop this week, but think I should read this book first (hope I win the giveaway 😉 ). I have a full on kitchen garden but I’m afraid the chickens will just ruin it if I let them wonder around it during the day. I was planning on making their Run as big as I could, but have limited space for it. I’d feel bad about not letting them wonder around as much as possible. Is there anything totally wrong with just leaving them in the coop/run all the time?
If their coop is big enough and you have plenty of fun food and entertainment they should be fine. However, if they are too “cooped” up they will start fighting with each other. It is a sign of stress.
My family has a recipe for Shawm torte (I’m not sure I can spell it though…) It’s pretty much a merengue with whipped cream and strawberries on top. Delish! Thanks for hosting the giveaway!
I keep chickens because they’re comedic relief! Having them entertains my husband, who works from home, while he’s stuck on never-ending, dull conference calls of doom. They’re fun to watch and eat oh so many bugs too!
We can spend ridiculous amounts of time watching them too! They are such entertaining animals.
I don’t have chickens yet, but hoping to in the next few years. Besides the eggs, I’m really excited about the deep composting stuff you have going on. Question for the rest – if we’re also thinking of getting a dog, how do dogs and chickens get along, how do you teach them to get along?
We grew up with dogs and chickens. It all depends on the dog and the chickens. We had a Springer (a water loving bird dog) that we trained to stay away from the chickens. He would however chase any other type of bird out of the yard. Most of our chickens ignored the dog as well. Our little Banny hen (who acted as our guard hen and mother to ALL the baby chicks) made SURE the dog remember how close he could come to the flock (usually 3 ft and no more.)
I have 2 funny chicken stories from my childhood; my grandmother raised chickens (where my love came from i guess) One day my older cousin, who had grown up in town & her husband (who was a country boy) were visiting ; Grandmothers chickens were free range, long before anyone knew what that word meant; anyway we were sitting on the front porch, watching the chickens in the front yard. You know, the exciting country life; well soon the show got real exciting, because one of the roosters & one of the hens became, shall we say “friends with benefits”. Everyone else ignored the show, except for the city cousin, who screamed to husband, “that rooster is going to kill Aunt Emma’s hen, make him stop!” She thought they were fighting!
2nd funny chicken story from childhood…..My sister was about 4 or 5 , somehow she managed to catch a baby chick. She brought it into the house, gave it a bath, sprinkled it with baby powder & wrapped it up in a doll blanket……..When she showed me her prized baby chick, I (being the smarter older sister) informed her it was dead. At this point, she ran though the house screaming “Joyce killed my chicken” For months she went around telling anyone who would listen, that i killed her chicken…..See i need to win the book so i won’t kill any more chicks!
Now that we have dandelions coming up all over our yard, our new favorite pasttime is digging up dandelions and feeding them to the girls. We might collect a gallon in a day (yeah, we have some dandelion issues). My 3 year old puts his arm through the wire to drop the dandelion clumps down to eager, milling “chickies”. Then we started finding worms in an area that will be covered over soon and not benefit from worms anyway–my little guy loved taking the wiggly squishy worms over and feeding them to the girls as well. The first couple were just like the dandelions–four chickens milling as he dropped worms down to them–but once the girls realized that this was even better than the dandelions, they became gradually more frantic until one of them flew up and snatched the worm right out of Charlie’s fingers. He stood perfectly still for a moment and then ran to me screaming hysterically. “Are you hurt or scared?” I asked. “Sared!” he sobbed. “The chickie thought my thumb a worm and flewed up and peck at me!” Once he calmed down, he found that this was a story that got a lot of response from listeners and has been telling it over and over to anyone who will listen.
By the way, for any other readers with small children, For Small Hands, a Montessori catalog has real leather work gloves for tiny people. Charlie now puts his crocs and gloves on by himself before going outside. He knows how to be prepared. http://www.forsmallhands.com/small-leather-work-gloves
Wow, I would love to win a copy of each of those books. I don’t have chickens now, since they aren’t allowed in my town. But I would love to have them some day. My favorite egg recipe is scrambled eggs with cheese mixed in and on top. This is also good if you happen to have any extra veggies, bacon, sausage, etc.