The Big Project, Part 8

16 years ago

As the summer slowly flows into autumn --too slowly in North Florida-- progress has continued on the permaculture garden. The big additions include a run of chicken pens around the windmill to form the 'wall of death' for insects traveling toward the garden. These pens house birds that either lay eggs that grow into meat birds or birds that produce eggs for the table. In total, there are eight of these breeder pens; four on each side of the windmill. I also added bluebird houses and a large bat house to keep down the insect population. And, I've started building raised bed gardens out of some abandoned retaining wall bricks.

The chicken pens and its residents:

The bat house; it stands on a 21' pole and can house about a thousand bats:

And the unfilled raised beds:

Comments (4)

tclynx
16 years ago
How deep is the well? Is there any worry about having the chickens so close to being right over the well?
stoneunhenged
Original Author
16 years ago
Good question. The well is 200 feet deep. That's about 20 feet of clay and 180 feet of limestone for filtration. There are only about a dozen birds in all those pens. I don't think fecal pollution will be an issue.
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tclynx
16 years ago
I would actually be more worried about the nitrogen at least with a deep bored well. I've only heard about fecal pollution in shallow open wells.

I'm a bit further south and definitely not on enough land for full scale permaculture but I am definitely trying to do well with the gardening aspect. We are also thinking about getting some chickens but will probably only have 4-6 layers.

Your project looks great.
annafl
16 years ago
I just wanted to say how much I have enjoyed reading all your posts about your big project. It would have been my dream come true to do something like this. Please keep posting so we can enjoy your progress and get inspired to do things even in a small way. I am in Sarasota, FL, living in a very suburban, HOA dominated neighborhood. However, we do what we can to recycle extensively in our home and yard. I have a small garden and some fruit trees. Would love to have chickens, but not allowed. Please give us updates and photos!

Anna