Add a base layer of charcoal, and you’ve got my garden beds from ten years back– most productive garden I’ve ever had! When the chicks were too small to be ranging around outside, I kept them in a 3×8 pen with a hinged top (corrugated to keep the rain out), perched on top of an equal-sized raised bed made of cinder blocks. Started with a paper mulch layer of newspaper and cardboard to keep roots out, then about 2″ of charcoal to keep it from getting too stinky and leaking nitrogen, then every day I threw in all the kitchen scraps, all the weeds I pulled from other parts of the yard, grass clippings, wood shavings, little chunks of sod for them to scratch at, just whatever was around, until the bed filled up completely. Then moved on to another bed. Planted directly into that mess with just a bit of bagged soil (I was afraid of burning the roots, I don’t know if it was necessary), and then mulched with cardboard on top. Great batch of tomatoes that year, and after those, in the fall, the most beautiful chard I’ve ever grown.

I have a small back yard so the chickens have a centralized home area and rotate their spring and fall extensions which are the unused previous garden areas. In the fall the summer garden gets all the leaves and kitchen scraps, in the spring the fall garden gets all the grass clippings and kitchen scraps, both areas get a healthy dose of poo in their down time. My soil has improved greatly in two years.