Greetings!
One thing I love about home gardens is that it's multifaceted. This is because, when it comes to a home garden, you can plant as many crops as possible without any form of hindrance and to take care of it would always be easier as a result of the closeness of the garden to your room.
Also, aside from planting crops, rearing domestic animals is another form of raising a garden in our compound and that was why I said that, home garden is a multifaceted thing where you can plant and rear domestic animals.
Now, one thing I love about these two coming together when it comes to having a home garden is that both help one another.
For instance, the rabbit faeces can be used to nourish the ground as I used to do back then when I was rearing rabbits. And when used to nourish the ground, the plants planted on that tilled ground germinate well. Also, since rabbits are this kind of a herbivorous animal, then, plucking the leaves off some of the plants planted to feed my rabbit has always helped me to reduce my rabbit feeding cost.
But now, I'm no longer into rabbit rearing and instead, I'm now into rearing chicken. Now, this rearing of chicken has really contributed to improving my plant garden. One thing I now do is to gather the faeces and apply it to the tilled ground. Though, if not well handled, it can affect the soil and this is because of its high rate of pathogens and ammonia which can harm the soil.
So, for this reason, I used to take my time to decompose it, or better still leave it for sometime before applying it to the ground. And one thing I have always seen after the application to the soil is that it nourishes the soil. Through its various components of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Chicken feces also improve the soil and are beneficial to the soil microorganisms.
So, from rabbit rearing to that of chicken, I have been able to grow and improve my local garden very well and not only this, my till ground soil is now being fertilized by the feces waste of the chicken I rear.
Also, aside from this, my chicken has also contributed to the means of my livelihood. Aside from adding nutrients to my garden and tilled ground, I still make money out of it whenever I sell it. Not only that, I and my household also eat out of the reared chicken as we used to do with the rabbit when i was rearing it back then.
So, like I said earlier. Home garden is multifaceted with the planting of crops and the rearing of domestic animals. But in my own case, I rear chicken and my chickens are being caged and do not move around the compound.
Home garden is good, though it takes time, but the reward when it comes can be good and amazing.
This is my entry to the hive garden prompt.
Thanks for reading.
Pictures are mine.