Woodrow method questions

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by Pakanohida, Oct 8, 2013.

  1. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    So, 8 spots... anyone go up to 9 or 10? I have been tossing and mulling the idea around of going to 10 spots, which I take it means the chickens won't be in the original spot for 154 days (did I get that math right?) which should allow time for melons, squashes, and so forth.

    Secondly, has anyone any experience with the chicken tractor going over a very acidic area / pine needle ground floor kind of area? This should only occur in this Woodrow system area twice.

    Lastly, and perhaps the most important question, are YOU having a nice day?
     
  2. Rick Larson

    Rick Larson Junior Member

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    The only knowledge I have about chickens is what I've learned from the PDC course, I really want to try chickens some time. So type more chicken stories!

    But I am having a nice day. So far today I checked the fruit ripeness of two wild apple trees, ate myself silly on nearby Nanny berry bushes (brought home some seed to plant), and planted a lot of Highbush Cranberry seeds from the picking I did a few weeks ago. Also had a conversation with a seed distrubutor who explained the first two leaves of the clover plant still has its energy in the plant and is susceptible to being killed by hard frost. But once the next set of leaves have grown, the energy is sent down to the roots so they can have the energy to resprout next spring. He also talked about the spring freeze and thaw seed planting method.
     
  3. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    Having a lovely day thanks for asking.

    I had 10 spots at one stage. I do two weeks on a garden bed, and used to have two 4 week spots so it took 6 months to complete a rotation. The problem was that it was too many beds to maintain and apart from 4 of them, the rest were getting on out into psychological zone 3 territory (too far up the hill to go and check on unless I had a really good reason - which was rare). So only 4 really grew anything useful and the rest went weedy.

    So I built a permanent chook house and run and now run the chooks over the 4 main beds twice a year and then put them back into the chook house. Except when I want them to clear one of the previous beds which are now being converted to a food forest.

    No experience with pine needles. But I can't imagine that it would be a problem. Can you access something alkaline (mushy compost?) to toss in there for the chooks to scratch through that will rebalance the soil?
     
  4. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    I had two mandalas each with 7 spots, but kept running into trouble due to differences in climate, things not growing as fast as they do in a sub tropical climate and not being very good at getting the seedlings grown fast enough to keep up with the dome being moved around.
    It did work great at turning lawn into lovely useable garden soil though with hardly any digging at all, but I have to move on to something else this year.

    My soil is according to my ingenious 'machine' all neutral rather than acidic like yours so I cant help you there.

    I would have as many spots for the dome as you can manage even more than 14 if you arent in a subtropical type climate. You'll find that in winter, two weeks is too long for the dome to sit on one spot and the soil gets puggy and smelly.

    Dont you have quite a large property?
    I would probably fence off the vege garden or at least the parts used to grow things that chooks love to destroy and leave them to wander where they will.

    If you find it hard to locate where they are hiding their eggs, I found an almost fullproof way of discovering their nests- so long as you can see them when they start to cackle.
    Stand on the spot that you first saw them start to cackle, facing the opposite way they were standing. Somewhere with in 10 -12 feet behind where they stood is the nest.

    Another way is to let them out as late as you can and watch for the one that walks in a very determined manner in one direction-looks like I feel when I am desperate to go to the loo. I noticed that usually when they are let out, they sort of wander about, unless they were holding on and really wanted to lay their egg out of the house nest box.
    Even though they go straight to their favourite spot, you have to keep your eye on them, its amazing how fast they just disappear if you look away even for an instant.
    Haha, I am getting to be an expert at spying on chickens.

    In spite of it raining and blowing a gale when I really needed afew more days fine weather, I am feeling really good.
    I have managed to avert yet another potential disaster with my water tank.
    I finally cleared the circle where it will go and started with the digging to lowering the level for it, only to discover where exactly the original owners had put their world war 2 bomb shelter. Arent I a lucky girl!

    This had been filled in with what looks like ash from the fire and the odd broken cup, bottle, plate, tin can and is alot softer than the area that is still all clay.
    Yesterday I started to dig this all out and dump it on a tarp up in the garden. I had scraped the clay that was ontop of this in-fill to see how far it went and found it was a metre into the tanks circle. Personally, I love that I am digging out 'useful' soil for the garden rather than having to Find homes for the clay. I now have a home for the clay when I get to lower the whole circle out.....in this dirty big hole!
    But its raining and I dont like digging in the rain nor trying to heave heavy wheelbarrows around so I am having a lazy sunday instead.
     
  5. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    You don't want to reinstate it as protection for the coming zombie apocalypse?
     
  6. songbird

    songbird Senior Member

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    i've not heard of the Woodrow method before, but it sounds like a rotational system based upon grazing gardens using chickens/chooks?

    things vary, so observation will be key.

    as for your last question, my day was pretty good, i started by going out and picking some more dry beans that have finished up this past week and then ate a quart of cherry tomatoes off the vine before heading over to the drainage project and starting to get that going again now that we have some days of dry weather in the forecast. digging out a trench the second time is much faster. :)
     
  7. Terra

    Terra Moderator

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    Ive got a single 6 circle pattern with a couple off the side as spares , I only run 4 chooks and leave the dome on longer , I recon you can make your own program I have found the more straw / trash you have in the dome the better (stops compaction / slop ) .

    Rough day for me , blood test then dentist then chiro then shearing fat super heavy rams in the heat ive had enough for today , yesterday was a nice day . 8)
     
  8. mouseinthehouse

    mouseinthehouse Junior Member

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    I thought it sounded like a contraceptive method, guess I was wrong. :) I admit I couldn't have my chooks locked up in a dome/tractor thing. I have a different strategy for using the chooks in the system.

    My day today was wonderful. Thank you. Hope yours was too.
     
  9. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    Linda Woodrow - The Permaculture Home Garden.
    She has an active blog - The Witches Kitchen.

    She explains here why she has moved on from the chook dome rotation system described in the book. There's nothing wrong with the system (works really well at my place) but she needed to fence the garden beds so the dome no longer made sense. That's the lesson in permaculture - it is about using the right tool for the job. A herb spiral, a swale and a hugelkultur bed aren't compulsory....
     
  10. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    That is precisly why I went backwards back to the Woodrow method.

    7 chooks in an 8x8x2.5' high (Uhh lil under 2m by 2m, by nearly 1m high.) So I have less than she wants, but I am fencing in my area, and using the dome. Deer, duck & chook would eat me out of house, home & garden! Oh wait, they did in Spring. Oh the tractor is made of pine, and is incredibly heavy, especially during these fun rainy months I am now experiencing. The dome method would fly away with the winds I have.
     
  11. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    This should help

    [​IMG]

    Yes, and they did. They also recruited help from a 4 legged named Deer. Deer loved getting at things the chooks couldn't.

    As you can see, I am taking apart a deadwood swale, 1 year old, and moving it uphill where it is doing more good and is more inline with my 2 swales. This whole area is sloped, but it is also the best & pretty much only place for any tractor I have made. This whole chook / woodrow garden area will be fenced in as well. Deer would just do too much damage. Immediately above the brown deadwood swale near the top of the picture is going to be a pond to help with irrigation to the chicken area.

    Oh, the 1st grow spot already has mustards and other members of a polyculture growing happily. Perhaps I should rotate in cover crops. :think:
     
  12. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    Nah, its too close to the back door of the house and would be right next to a heavy water tank- not a good look if there was to be an earthquake,lol.
     

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