Millet Makes a Debut

Part of my garden plans this year included a few beds devoted entirely to producing chicken feed.  Four of them are planted in dent corn, two of them with giant sunflowers, and two with millet.  I am also growing a dry bean that I will eventually cook or sprout for the chickens.  The millet is something new that I am trying this year instead of the grain amaranth I grew last year.  I decided that the grain amaranth was too hard to harvest by hand and the yields weren't all that impressive.  So after doing a little research on what sorts of things went into chicken feed I found that millet was sometimes used to replace corn and had a slightly higher protein content than corn.  I am by no means able to grow enough food to feed my whole flock through the year, but anything I can do to supplement their diet that is as local as my back yard is a win win in my book.  I also think the girls appreciate a little variety in their diet since they are only allowed to free range under supervision for most of the year. 

The millet got off to a slow start this year.  I scattered the grain throughout the two beds when I planted and I didn't do a whole lot of weeding in those beds until I was sure what was millet and what was not.  I had the same problem with the amaranth last year.  Never having grown it before I didn't know what it looks like when it first comes up and I will admit that I pulled quite a few because I mistook them for weeks.  Once the millet was well established it was much easier to distinguish it from the weeds and the beds were thoroughly weeded about a month ago.  I guess the timing was good because the millet was strong enough to crowd out any new weeds that made an attempt in those beds. 

In the last few weeks the plants have grown to be about waist high and have filled out nicely.

As they have grown the leaves have come to resemble corn leaves which I guess is not terribly unusual considering that they are both grasses.  In the last few days I have just started to see seed heads appearing at the tops of the plants.  They look like thick, fuzzy cat tails and are about the size of my hand.

From the looks of things each plant should bear a good number of seeds once they are ripe.  I just hope that I can keep the sparrows out of them until I can harvest them all for the chickens.