Ideas

I was thinking about how I am going to clean out the chicken coop and get all of the bedding out to the field to put down in the garden. The coop is not easily accessible to simply shovel out and toss straight into the back of the truck. I was going to take the bedding out a 5-gallon bucket at a time and throw it into the truck, but my sister said to put the bedding into big garbage bags. As I thought about that, I think it may be a pretty good idea. If I get a box of good quality black plastic garbage bags, I can bag the bedding up a couple of bags at a time over the next couple of weeks. I can put the bags in the sun where the bedding will continue to compost. Then, when I'm ready to turnover the garden, the final clean out of the coop won't take but a couple of hours. I can shoo the chickens out into the yard while I disinfect the coop and air it out, and I can easily toss the bagged bedding into the back of truck and head out to the field. When I'm ready, I can turnover the garden area, make my raised beds and selectively work the bedding into specific beds or spread the bedding over the entire garden area as I decide. I'll think about that some more. If I work the bedding into specific beds, it seems I wouldn't waste any bedding by having it fall into walk ways. And by purchasing good quality bags, I can re-use them if I store them properly. Anyway, I thought I would write this idea down before I forgot it. When you don't have a lot of equipment, you just have to work with what you do have!