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Free-Range Chicken Gardens: How to Create a Beautiful, Chicken-Friendly Yard

By Jessi Bloom

Photographs by Kate Baldwin

Goes beyond telling us merely how to raise chickens ... [Jessi] shows how to integrate poultry into the garden.

Toby Hemenway, author of Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture

Many gardeners fear chickens will peck away at their landscape, and chicken lovers often shy away from gardening for the same reason. But you can keep chickens and have a beautiful garden, too! Fresh eggs aren't the only benefit — chickens can actually help your garden grow and thrive, even as your garden does the same for your chickens.

In this essential handbook, award-winning garden designer Jessi Bloom covers everything a gardener needs to know, including chicken-keeping basics, simple garden plans to get you started, tips on attractive fencing options, the best plants and plants to avoid, and step-by-step instructions for getting your chicken garden up and running.

For anyone who wants a fabulous garden where colorful chickens happily roam, Free-Range Chicken Gardens is the guide that will bring the dream home to roost.

Filed under: bestsellers, garden design, instructional, new books, animals, birds, ecosystems, insects, pests and diseases, plant directory, soil, structures, sustainable

Format: Paperback
Pages: 224 pp.
Book dimensions: 8 x 9 in. (230 x 205 mm.)
Images: 125 color photos, 12 drawings
ISBN-10: 1604692375
ISBN-13: 9781604692372
Product code: 689237

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Media reviews

"Solves the dilemma of having free-range chickens and a vegetable garden."

—Kym Pokorny, Oregonian

"Bloom's obvious enthusiasm for good design and for her birds will inspire both novice and experienced chicken owners to create a garden space for hens and humans to enjoy."

—American Gardener

"Numerous illustrations, full-color photos, charts and tables, garden layouts, and useful tips ... offer a wealth of practical advice."

—Booklist

"Well-written and would be a true asset to every chicken owner. This book has now become one of my favorite chicken books."

—TillysNest.com

"I can honestly refer to it as the Chicken Bible for Gardeners. With everything from coop design, dietary needs, to chicken personality explained, this book seems to leave nothing out."

—FloraDoraGardens.com

"One of the coolest books I have had the privilege of reviewing."

—Sara Thompson, ReadingAllYearLong.com

"If you have a backyard flock or you're thinking of getting one, I would highly recommend this book as part of your poultry library."

—Spinning Alpaca Yarns.com

"Everything you want to know about gardening with chickens ... is here."

—Amy Stewart, Garden Rant

"Exquisitely produced and artfully photographed."

—Brigid Gaffikin, San Francisco Chronicle

"A comprehensive guide from mating to medicine that will particularly help beginners. ... Bloom makes a persuasive case."

—Publishers Weekly

"I love this book. It has the two things I look for in any garden book: tons of solidly researched, well-written, detailed information and lots of big inspirational color photos."

—WhitePinesWhisper.com

"Tackles the very fear that keeps so many from the enjoyment of raising their own backyard flock."

—GreenPreferred.com

"Dispenses good, commonsense advice."

—HenCam.com

"As lush and inspiring as the chicken paradise featured on the front."

—TheGardenCoop.com

"A fun new book."

—Valerie Easton, Plant Talk

About the author

Jessi Bloom

Jessi Bloom is an award-winning landscape designer whose work emphasizes ecological systems, sustainability, and self-sufficiency. She is a certified professional horticulturalist and certified arborist, as well as a long-time chicken owner with a free-ranging flock in her home garden.