Grow a Sustainable Diet: Planning and Growing to Feed Ourselves and the Earth by Cindy Conner Page B

of one. I took that opportunity to build an overhang on that fourth side, since it needed work anyway, and put the rabbit cages there. The chickens could run under those cages on the outside of the building. I store the feed inside the chicken house, which is a lot better than walking to the barn to get it. There are two doors, covered with chicken wire, that separate the feed area from the two chicken areas. I found the doors at a yard sale, just at the time I needed them. If you keep your eyes and mind open and your intentions clear, things will show up for you like that. I built nest boxes that extend into the “feed room” to make egg collection easier. They were made from scrap wood with the tongues of old tennis shoes as hinges.
    Although I couldn’t find this in Logsdon’s book when I checked, I’m sure I got the idea to put a loft in the chicken house from something he’d written. That building isn’t tall, but I put some plywood over the chicken area and it makes a great place to store straw from the grain harvest orgrass clippings for the chickens, bringing those birds into the circle of production. I put the straw down as bedding and feed them the dried “grass hay.” When it is time to clean the chicken house, all of that becomes compost, which will go to the garden beds when finished. I cover the chicken droppings with hay or straw throughout the year, cleaning it out only once in the summer. It is important to have plenty of carbon material at all times to add to the chicken droppings. We have an old five foot wooden ladder that I keep folded up in the chicken house. I use that to reach the material in the loft.
    Trellises
    You can increase space in your garden by using trellises to get things off the ground. The garden maps in Chapter 8 show a trellis being used with tomatoes and cucumbers. When I started gardening, I used whatever I could find to hold things up. I don’t like to put up strings to support plants, so I avoid that when possible. What I find most useful as a trellis is a piece of metal fence supported by metal posts that can be moved to the next bed in the rotation each year. Although I have used some homemade tomato cages, I prefer the fence for tomatoes.
    Fencing
    There are all types of fencing to choose from, depending on what you want to fence in or out. Notice the gauge of the wire on the fencing you find — the higher the number (gauge) the thinner the wire. It might make a difference when you are making comparisons. There are a number of plastic options, often with solar electric chargers involved. You’ll have to look elsewhere for information on those systems and a good place to look is Premier One Supplies. 1 The plastic will need disposed of sooner than wire fencing, unless you compare it to chicken wire, which will just rust away. The batteries on the solar chargers will eventually need to be replaced, another disposal problem. We used electric fence (solar charger and aluminum wire) to expand the grazing area when we had the cow. I much prefer the permanent fencing that we have installed as we were able.
    Here are some things I’ve experienced over the years with fencing:
    Chicken wire will keep chickens in, but not necessarily keep other animals out. If you are having trouble with rabbits in your garden, a quick and relatively inexpensive fix is to put up 2′ high chicken wire. You can staple it to wood posts, but if you use metal fence posts (the kind for electric fence) you could take it down easier. The metal fence posts have insulators for the electric wire that can adjust to different levels on the post. The chicken wire can hook right to those insulators. You can step over the fence to get in and out. This fence will be effective for maybe two years against rabbits, then they will just hop over it. You could go with a taller fence from the get-go, but you would have to put in a gate. In five years, the chicken wire will be rusting and the grass will be growing up