Tom Borden

Hi William, thanks for the good advice re planting back there. This actually opens up another branch (pun intended) to my inquiry. Our ladies have done a very thorough job decimating any and all plant life back there other than the trees. Not that there was much other than grasses before. We are definitely looking for any and all planting suggestions from the Permies group, this would be bushes, grasses, canes or anything that the chickens will leave alone. We're trying to get that area back there as lush and alive as possible, but those plants will need to be very chicken resistant. The soil is good, great drainage (we're on the former banks of the Columbia River (from the Missoula flood times) with lots of river rock below 10-12" of topsoil. Tons of sun. Lots of rain in the winter and springtime, Portland style.

Thank you for any and all suggestions!

Thanks Nicole! I do suspect I'm a little impatient and expecting too much too early from these trees, so it's nice to hear that it might just be another year or two before they really start producing.

I love your idea of the rocks, I'm going to give that a try. My ladies are pretty strong and persistent so I'll need some big rocks!

I'm going to start moving a lot more carbon back there - wood chips, leaves, straw - and see how that goes.
I prune my trees pretty heavily in the winter - structural pruning - and again in the summer - to control vigor. I'm keeping them all at about 8' tall, they're all getting nice and strong and thick in the limb.

I'll check in again later in the summer, see if we get any fruit at all this year.

Thanks again.

Big thanks to all of you who have replied so far! I appreciate it.
Answering some of the questions posted:

1) The shape of our chicken area is rectangular, 50' x 25'. The trees are evenly interspersed in the area. I've been trying to avoid rotational grazing, I like the chickens to have a lot of room to roam. And I'm not sure how quickly I'd be able to get plants to grow in an area before letting these ladies in to quickly decimate them! I think I'm going to hold off on this plan until I exhaust all others.

2) Adding lots of carbon is probably the route I'm going to take first, so thank you for all material suggestions. I currently am starting to put straw hay back there as part of my compost chicken feed system. I keep about 3-4 bales in the coop at all times and then spread one every few weeks around the chicken area. I have an open compost bin, from pallets, back there that I'm constantly adding the hay to, once it has been thoroughly chickened. The chickens jump and climb into the bin and feed and then every 1-2 weeks I pull off two of the walls/pallets and they feed pretty hard for a few days. I've cut my feed bill down to about 30% of what I was buying before. But, I digress... am I correct that straw hay is good carbon to add (as opposed to alfalfa grass hay?).

3) I'm planning to start putting tons of dried leaves back there every fall, which I can collect all over town in my truck. I'm guessing that my ladies are aggressive enough in their scratch and peck skills that I won't need to worry about leaves getting too matted and anaerobic.

4) I too wonder if I'm jumping the gun getting worried about fruit production when the trees are only 2-4 years old. But they have lots of green vegetative growth and I've been wondering if this is again due to high nitrogen in the soil. I've attached pics here of the Asian pear (2 yrs old), Fuyu persimmon (4 yrs) and Aromatnaya quince (4 yrs) for referrence.

Thank you again - any and all other carbon material suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Tommy

Hello, I'm new to the forum, happy to be here.

I live on a small 1/4 acre lot in Portland, OR that we have pretty well planted with vegetable gardens and fruit bushes and trees. I have a small fruit tree orchard in my chicken area, total square footage 1250 sq ft. I have twelve hens back there right now, they are confined to this area. Over the past four years, I've planted six semi-dwarf fruit trees in that chicken area - Asian pear, Fuyu persimmon, peach, pineapple quince, green gage plum, and red flesh apple.

The trees are all good sized and very healthy, I prune every winter and summer. The problem is the trees are not producing blossoms or fruit, just a lot of green vegetative growth. Pollination is not the issue, we have a healthy group of Mason bees.

I'm pretty sure the issue with the fruit trees is that they are getting way too much nitrogen in the soil back there. We get consistent rain November-June every year and all that chicken manure soaking into the soil appears to be stunting any flower/fruit growth.

I'm looking for all suggestions to mitigate or consume the soil nitrogen back there. Thank you in advance for any advice!