backyard agriculture | Southern Fried Science

Adventures in Backyard Agriculture: A Summary and More

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Amy Freitag

fireweed, a delicious wild edible in alpine climates

This week, Southern Fried Scientist and I have written about our personal adventures in making town life a little more sustainable. First, building a chicken coop – a deluxe one, complete with green roof and made out of recycled materials. Next, dwarf goats as milk-producing pets and clarifying some of the tall tales about goats (no, they don’t eat tin cans but yes, you can teach them to head butt on command). The chicken story continued with how to raise them – whether to get chicks or pullets, what they need as they grow to be egg producing hens or the cock-a-doodle-doo producing rooster. Plus, it’s hard to beat chicks in a basket. Finally, what you might have thought backyard agriculture was all about – the garden.

After our miniseries, you might be left wondering ‘now what’? Where to begin or maybe there’s still some hesitation over whether it’s all worth it. Here’s some other practical considerations you might think about before beginning your urban agriculture adventure.

Adventures in Backyard Agriculture: Raising Chickens

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Andrew Thaler

I have a basket of baby chickens. Your argument is invalid.

So you’ve decided to commit to a more sustainable lifestyle, you’ve built a Pico-farm and are ready to stock it with a flock of happy, egg-laying chickens. Congratulations, you’ve reached the fun part.

Before you go out and buy chickens, you need to ask yourself a few questions: do you want hens only, or do you want a rooster for breeding? Do you want to raise them from chicks or buy adults ready to lay? How big a flock do you want?

Adventures in Backyard Agriculture: Building the Pico-farm.

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Andrew Thaler

Several months ago, I began a new personal challenge to live more sustainably. I wanted to do something more substantial and larger in scale than the conventional methods of reducing your environmental impacts, which involve changes in habit, not changes in lifestyle. After many discussions, Bluegrass Blue Crab and myself decided it was time to try our hands at backyard agriculture.