Which plants will your ducks not eat? :)

[Jen1979]

Ok, so we've completely resigned ourselves to the fact that we can plant anything we like in the front garden (where ducks don't go), we have made a big fenced area in the back garden for "no ducks allowed vegetables", but the rest of the quite large yard where the ducks free range is looking rather bare....I was really pleased to learn just before we got ducks that we would never have a problem with slugs, snails and caterpillars again...which was definitely true....but that may be due to the fact the ducks ate all the plants the bugs would have been found on

SO, we're trying to figure out which plants ducks are not fond of so we can plant a mixture of ones they can eat and ones they wont....that way the garden wont look like a barren desert all the time, hopefully. So far it appears our don't like rosemary, lavender, geraniums and some herbs. I would have said sunflowers, but yesterday they decided they were actually rather tasty too.

Are there ANY plants they will begrudgingly allow us humans to have?

What do you have in the garden that the ducks seem to not bother with?

 

[LondonMcKNight]

Hi Jen...

Here's my experience, hopefully it helps...=) I had free range chickens and ducks for the first time last year, and I too thought how wonderful it would be for my feather friends to devour all the insect enemies... And while the chickens were excellent bug eaters, much to my dismay they also devoured most of my plants... the chickens NOT the ducks...

And therein lies MY TIP! If possible garden using RAISED BEDS... My raised beds are approximately 3 feet high... My chickens loved jumping into the raised beds and digging into the soft soil while snacking on all my veggie plants... However, my ducks never jumped up into the boxes, they only dined on the plant parts that flowed over the edges...



This year I'm installing netting around each of the raised beds, to keep the chickens out, see pictures... (I was very much against the idea of netting at first as I thought it would greatly take away from the beauty of the garden, but the netting I found is barely visible, and I plan to paint the black post the netting attaches to green... The pictures below were taken close up, but from a distance the netting really isn't noticable...



Although, neither the chickens nor ducks ate my pepper plants, potato plants, squash plants and they barely touched the tomato plants...(though, that's most likely because the tomato plants were caged...)

Around the "Eggery", (chicken coop), I planted nasturtiums for their beauty, (though it is a wonderful salad green, with a slightly spicy flavor, and beautiful edible flowers... None of the birds bothered the nasturtiums...=) (If you'd like I can send you some nasturtium seeds...)



However, they terrorized my broccoli plants, kale plants and all of my other salad greens, such as: spinach and lettuce...
But again the ducks only ate what hung over the edges of the boxes.

I also discovered last year that the ducks absolutely love the broccoli leaves thrown into their pond, So, this year I plan to plant broccoli plants all around their pond and in a few other places, just for them...=)

Also, all of my feathered friends get fresh red grapes, cut in halves, and peas at least once a day...=) Oh, and the ducks love to have their peas thrown into the pond as well....=)

Cheers ~London

PS, My issue is flower beds, and/or pots, not because they, (they - meaning the chickens), eat the flowers, but they love to dig in the soft soil, and end up destroying the roots...=(

 

[needlessjunk]

I have found that the larger the plant the less likely they are to do damage. I have Honey suckle, bottle brush and some other plants I can't think of the name of and they leave it alone. They left my basil alone almost all year and then striped it down to nothing in the fall

they ate everything in my garden and do eat some of my blueberries but they can't reach most of it. I'm planting sage varities this year and lavender. I will fence it off those till it get bigger because sampling young plants will more than likely kill it. Oh and they aren't too fond of mint, Rosemary or lemon thyme.

 

[jennifleur]

They tend to leave these plants alone in my yard
Yarrow
Sage- Herb and Ornamental
Lavender
Mint
Thyme
Beebalm
Lemon Balm
Oregano
Onion
Gerber Daisy
Lisianthus
Hardy Geranium- Bloody cransbill
Scented Geranium
snow in summer
creeping plox
Calla lily
Canna lilly
Hibiscus
Catmint
Hollyhock
Sunflower
Poppies
Ganzia
Lobilia
Sweet Violets
Cosmos
Bachlor buttons
Gardinia
Milkweed
Iceplant
Allisum
Iris
Daylily
Penstemon
Daffodil
Guara- they will eat seed heads only
Campunela
lithadora
Honeysuckle
Azela
Gladiola
Nastursium
Cupids dart
California Bluebells
Arugala - only salad green they dont devour
Squash

 

[Jen1979]

Hi Jen...

Here's my experience, hopefully it helps...=) I had free range chickens and ducks for the first time last year, and I too thought how wonderful it would be for my feather friends to devour all the insect enemies... And while the chickens were excellent bug eaters, much to my dismay they also devoured most of my plants... the chickens NOT the ducks...

And therein lies MY TIP! If possible garden using RAISED BEDS... My raised beds are approximately 3 feet high... My chickens loved jumping into the raised beds and digging into the soft soil while snacking on all my veggie plants... However, my ducks never jumped up into the boxes, they only dined on the plant parts that flowed over the edges...



This year I'm installing netting around each of the raised beds, to keep the chickens out, see pictures... (I was very much against the idea of netting at first as I thought it would greatly take away from the beauty of the garden, but the netting I found is barely visible, and I plan to paint the black post the netting attaches to green... The pictures below were taken close up, but from a distance the netting really isn't noticable...



Although, neither the chickens nor ducks ate my pepper plants, potato plants, squash plants and they barely touched the tomato plants...(though, that's most likely because the tomato plants were caged...)

Around the "Eggery", (chicken coop), I planted nasturtiums for their beauty, (though it is a wonderful salad green, with a slightly spicy flavor, and beautiful edible flowers... None of the birds bothered the nasturtiums...=) (If you'd like I can send you some nasturtium seeds...)



However, they terrorized my broccoli plants, kale plants and all of my other salad greens, such as: spinach and lettuce...
But again the ducks only ate what hung over the edges of the boxes.

I also discovered last year that the ducks absolutely love the broccoli leaves thrown into their pond, So, this year I plan to plant broccoli plants all around their pond and in a few other places, just for them...=)

Also, all of my feathered friends get fresh red grapes, cut in halves, and peas at least once a day...=) Oh, and the ducks love to have their peas thrown into the pond as well....=)

Cheers ~London

PS, My issue is flower beds, and/or pots, not because they, (they - meaning the chickens), eat the flowers, but they love to dig in the soft soil, and end up destroying the roots...=(

Thank you so much @LondonMcKNight ! and your raised garden beds are stunning! (My husband is going to want to build some exactly the same as those when I show him these pictures, I can tell!

We have some raised garden beds at the moment, but we might need to make them higher, or put the netting around. We have a few that are about 3ft high and the ducks still jump into them! They've even started making nests in the big raised herb garden

Those Nasturtiums look beautiful, I've never seen them in different colours before, I've only ever seen yellow ones! I love that you planted some broccoli just for them We were thinking of doing something similar, kale or broccoli near their pool and caging it until it got a little bigger, then letting them go for it

We've been feeding them peas most days, and some lettuce too (they are crazy for peas aren't they!) maybe I need to try giving them peas etc everyday and seeing whether they'll have enough greens to leave some of the other stuff alone

We have a fenced herb garden in the chicken yard - that's seemed to work quite well with them eating only the leaves that are poking through (except for one naughty little Araucana who's figured out a way to get in and spends half the day making a nest out of the mint plant!)

Thank you so much for sharing the photos of your gardens - I'm very inspired now!

 

[Jen1979]

Thanks so much @jennifleur and @needlessjunk ! That gives me some great ideas for what to plant too. I'm going to head to the nursery with my "outsmart the ducks" list!