General Discussions - 2010 - Chapter 29

Hi Jnette,
It looks as though we are both night owls. I seem to be on the line the same time as you tonight.
It is going to get cold here in Oregon tonight, clear with stars showing, that means that it will get cold. We had almost 60 degrees here today.
Paul.

Oh wow, about time to start planting. What does that put the soil temp at?

hi qg barley makes good beer cant be to bad.

Wish I could find barley straw :(. I spent a fortune on it before I knew what it was*G*. I bought these "algae control" thingies for my water tanks, and they looked just like little bundles of straw....which is what they were. Barley straw. I think it was $12 for two softball size chunks in netting.
Anyway, if you want to prevent algae, hang on to some of that hay...OSU tells you how;

http://ohioline.osu.edu/a-fact/0012.html

I bought a full size square bale of barley straw 3 years ago at a local feed store just for my pond. It wasn't over priced like the nursery would charge, I think it was $7.00. I would pull a slab of the straw and put it in a net bag and wedge it in place in the falls. It is a big help in keeping your pond clear.
I would recommend checking at your feed supply stores for it.
Hey Jeanette; a bright side of this long winter, the OSPs are trailing over the sides of their pot.
at least they think spring is coming.
think toward the end of the month, I'll take a couple slips from each of them and start some more just in case these don't like going outside.


Hey Jim, your right barley makes good beer, and 3 cups of self rising flour, 12oz bottle of dark ale beer,3 TBL spoons of sugar and 3 TBL spoons of olive oil makes a tasty bread too. LOL
Russ

Mine too Russ. Wonder why? In fact I nipped the tip out of mine yesterday to see if it might get some starts come out along that 3 foot long vine it grew. We'll see.

Hi everyone.
I bet you were all wondering now why don't she write.
Well, winter has alo to do with it.
Just bought my new bales yesterday. I bought ten. Nine to plant in and one to cover up the mess from the orchard grass bales. What ever you do never, never get orchard grass. I just rots like the grass it is. Smells like manuer and I can't think of a positive thing to say about them other then they were free.
We have this new little puppy and she just thought the old bales were heaven. I the month weve had her she has had about a bath every three days. She loves the straw bales. wants to run all over them so I am going to have to fence of my garden area. And she thought it was just for her.

well gee whizz ; she is just thinking if you can play in it I can too. lol

You should have seen her when I was tossing the straw over the old bales. It looked like she thought she had just died and gone to heaven. She was jumping and rolling in the straw. I think I have myself another farmer. This is how she looked at the end of the day. Now isn't that a face of contentment and mischeif at the same time. I wonder what she was dreaming about?

Jan, that is so funny. How does your older dog feel about this one?

I have been meaning to ask you. You leave your strawberry plants in the bales over the winter right? Then what do you do with the new bales in the spring? Do you pull the plants out of the old bales and replant them? Never thought about it until now because I want to plant some, but don't know about in the strawbales.

Jeanette

Well, seeing how I transplanted my strawberries last fall into the new orchardgrass bales I lost most of them. But I did leave them in the strawbales for two years and didn't do a thing to them and they came back with a vengence the next year. It was just that the strawbales were decomposing after two and a have years so thats why I decided to transplant. Lost almost all of them. As far as then getting along, this pretty much says it all

Lol, King of the Hill??

I wonder if the bales would decompose so much if you enclosed them with something. Or would they just decompose,but not fall all over the place. I don''t see how anything can really last more than one year or, 2 at the most. Unfortunately then you have to start over.

Sounds like a raised bed is more suited to anything that is not an annual.

The barley straw bales are 4.95 at the dairy. The other feed stores sell straw bales for 6.50 and I don't know what kind of straw it is.

Wow, that is a lot for straw. But, this time of year a lot of people are using it for bedding for all of their animals I guess.

I haven't checked, maybe I better get busy and at least try to find some.

Our hay is more $ than a lot of places. I saw someone post on Straw bale Gardening about getting bales of hay for $3 in KY, I think last year. Our cheapest, sale hay is $9 (when available) for alfalfa. Orchard, Timothy, Alfalfa #1 are more, and cost more at different places. The feed stores do offer discounts for 'goats' (which we really could use cow/crummy hay for, but they are fed with horses) and for 4H/FAA members.

Boy, I guess. That really is a lot for hay too. Good luck!!

I paid $5.25 a bale for Wheat straw. Nice bales but if you are considering orchard grass, please don't. you will be very disappointed. They decompose very fast and are not at all like the straw bales. I lost everything that I transplanted in them.

Well, the stuff I got last year was suppose to be 40% alfalfa, can't remember the rest, but I had the worst year ever for tomatoes. I don't know if it was the stuff I got or what. That old farmer said when my daughter told him what we were going to do with them, that his hay was too good for my tomatoes.

Oh yea, well, whose choice was it. I mean if you were buying the bales then I say its no business of theirs what you do with them. Its not like he was going to get them back and I say the better the bale the longer they last. I probably could have gone one more year with mine but I chose to go ahead and get new ones. God I wish I had just gone ahead and bought my bales instead of takeing from a gift horse.I will know better next time. I like the wheat straw as there is less seed not that it matters as I just trim away any growth from the bales. They are getting a good watering today. By the time it come planting time they should be nice and aged and it should be fairly easy to make the holes for my strawberry plants.

How many bales did you say you got Jan? And, are you going to put strawberries on all of them? Are you going to try to keep them going for the 2 years?

I going to plant strawberries in 6 of them along with some nasturtiums for extra color and pest control. I may plant some marrigolds in them too. In the other 3 I want to plant herbs, sweet peas, and a few tomatoes. Not to many. Last year I went crazy and ended up tossing most of them away. I will keep them planted all year for at least 3 years this time. I didn't do a thing to them last time and the second year berries were out of this world. I may add a little bone meal to them but not sure. I bought ten but I broke one up to cover the old Orchard grass bales so the puppy wouldn't get so smelly and dirty. You can see in the picture where I cover to old bales.

next summer i am going out and look for wheat fields. then talk to farmer &try to pick it up in the feld. this i have we had to carey from the back of a big hay loft. jim i thenk its a year old . i got it for 3.oo bale. jim

I'd love to get alflafa for $9, but it would go to my cows as treats:). Or maybe i'd have to get a horse :). I guess it all varies by area.
Okay, that's the second time I've seen mention of using bonemeal. What does that add? Maybe it's a strawberry thing? I'd love to try strawberries in a coupla bales this year, I'll look thru the old stuff and see what I can find...
Gourdbearer, I love your Garden Help. I have similar Helpers, or should I say, Hinderers :)

Jnette and others... If you are having problems with hay particularly hay with a lot of alfalfa in it, you need to ask the farmer if there were any strong herbicides sprayed on the hay and with alfalfa, sometimes farmers will spray it with a chemical to aid in "curing" (drying) the hay even after it has been baled... This may not have been the cause of your tomato problems last year (I had terrible time because of all the rain and cool weather) but it is something to think about when you are buying hay.. Most hay producers will tell you if they have sprayed their hay with strong herbicides so you can avoid this hay if you are mulching plants with it. Good luck!

Thanks nini. I will keep that in mind. Jeanette

hi jnette all the snow hogs down in tex&up in iowa are geting most of it . all we will get is 3in. see you latter. jim

I know it. Darn them anyway!! LOL, It is their turn isn't it? We had ours last year.

Sorry to be asking so many questions, but here is another. From the pictures I have seen, the bales seem to be laid out in single file. Can you double them up? Like this> ll Of course still butting up end to end.
ll
ll
ll
Seems like you would still be able to access them as they are not than deep. Also I could have 7 bales in each row and just wrap my soaker hose from one row to the next.

Thanks,
Lynda
Where we expect another 80 degree day!

Lynda, you can ask as many questions as you want. That is how we learn. But, when it comes to questions like that, you are going to get the same answer from everybody who has been doing this very long.

That is, that you can do anything you want to. Try it. Unless it is really bizarre or dangerous, like maybe looks like it would fall over on you or something, we are not going to tell you you can't do something, or that it won't work.

You might come up with the best way yet. Also, remember, what is best for you may not be for me. So, everyone does their own thing.

We can suggest, like I don't know why that wouldn't work, what you are suggesting, The main thing is to get the most out of the space you have to work with. Taking into account what you are going to plant in them, do they need staking, like tomatoes, if they are cukes, do you want to have them upright on a fence or some other support or let them go onto the ground.

Just try to take the growing habits of the plants you want to grow and the space you have to work with into your plan. Utilizing space, and the cost of the bales. Also of course sun vs shade.

Also, if you have a medical problem, do they need to be higher, lower, leave some space in between for wheel chair, that type of thing. Also, it is good to leave enough room for a lawn mower between any space where grass or maybe weeds will grow. Some people put down carpet tiles to cover weeds in walkways. Some other products, bark, gravel, etc.

If you have read the preceding chapters to this thread you would see all kinds of imaginations at work. They were pretty cool. Lots of good ideas.

Whatever you decide to do, please send pictures.

Lynda,
I'm wanting to try what you are asking about: placing two bales side by side and then three pairs end to end as you illustrate. Then I'd like to move about eight feet to one side and do it again...and then arch two cattle panels for a trellis between the two placements of bales. What do you all think? Will the wet bales be heavy enough to hold the cattle panels in place without further support?
Lee

I see what you mean. Those cattle panels are pretty strong. Have a pretty good spring. The guy that told us how to load and unload them said he didn't realize that and let the tail gate down on his truck where the cattle panels were and they let go and about beheaded him.

I don't know. If you weren't able to keep them wet enough and what happens when they decompose? 'course by then the vines would be holding them. What were you going to put on them, cucumbers, tomatoes, beans, peas, or???

Might work.if you put the bales tight together. Probably wouldn't hurt maybe to put a stake of rebar or something in them here and there. Interesting concept tho. Or T fence posts. Turned the right way of course.

Be sure to take pictures. LOL.

This is all sounding good but what are T fence posts. The cattle panels sound like more money but the T fence posts sound like they might be the ticket. I just spent big bucks on fencing material to keep the Phoebe girl out of the garden. She isn't going to be any too happy about that but she is still in the puppy stage and I can forsee all my strawberries scattered all over the yard. besides that, she thinks the bales are her own private Idaho. I will have to get her one of her own just to perch upon. Wallace never got up on the bales until she showed him just how much fun he was missing.

Lynda, the only problem with that might come from what you plant in them. For me, there would be too much foliage in too small a space. My summer squash overhung their bales by a good bit, and the 'maters (if trellsed between bales) would have been inextricably tangled, and I'm afraid there would not have been enough air circulation. Row crops like bush beans might do just fine, or something that you can trellis away from each other. I did my pole beans so that they arched over me, and picking was easy. Melons might be great, as the vines would just spread out. I did them in a single line bale set-up, and they did well. My best advice is, give it a shot, and as Jeanette says, keep us posted *G*.
Lee, I'm having trouble picturing this, so bear with me. Will you be using one panel for 4 bales? IOW, I'm seeing the panel stuck between the two bales and arched over to be between the two bales beside them. Or, do you envision one panel per double bale, and lean them to meet in the middle? My concern is that the arched panel may be too close to the ground, and make picking things a bit tricky. The second sounds easier to harvest, but may need a ladder *G*.
One thing I suggest is securing the panel to itself for the arch, to prevent the "boing" factor should the bales not hold them.
Again, give it a shot, and let us know how it works. No-one knows it all about this, we're all on a learning curve:)

sorry, double post...

This message was edited Feb 15, 2010 8:34 AM

Irn39 - I only recently saw what cattle panels look like, on another forum. They had them staked to the ground with vines growing on them and looked really neat. I can see where they would be neat for beans or peas, even tomatoes, coming from each end. It does not seem like the bales would be strong enough to hold the ends though, so I believe they would still need to be staked to the ground.

I know I can personalize my bales any which way, just checking on past experiences any one may have had. I had not thought of the shade factor. I was thinking about what someone said about only having 2 to 3 tomato plants per bale, cuz of all the staked foliage, so that set me thinking. How about 2 tomato plants going up and down below one or 2 bush or vining plants. Or is that too much for the bale to be able to nutritionally support? Does anyone add compost during the growing season?

quiltygirl; I remember Kent uses miracle gro, I have mixed dry manure and water ( tea ). to fertilize the plants.
I would say that if it looks like the area around the stalk / stem ,of the plant could use more support, by all means, it certainly wouldn't hurt to put a little compost around the plant.
the straw bale is turning into compost while you are using it so a little more wouldn't hurt.

I'm definitely getting just a wee bit of zone envy. Your all starting your bales, an I have paths cut through snow drifts so I can walk across my garden to get to my goat pen.
and after I warm up I'm going to get my garden tractor with the snow blower on it and clear my lane so I can get out if I need to.
May not be able to get very far though, the interstate is closed from Sioux City to Missouri Vally.
several other highways in the area are " travel not recommended" status .
the other day I had to dig a trench along one side of the goat pen in one of the drifts, as it had crusted over and the goats were just walking over the fence. Last night that trench, my lane and the path down to the goats filled in again. But that's okay it gives me something to do until I can get out in the garden again. Now don't laugh too hard, as I just find this weather challenging, and do my best to work around it. lol
Russ

Jan, what kind of fencing material did you get? How had you envisioned putting it up? You know what T posts are, I just may be calling them something you aren;t familiar with. They have a spade on the bottom that is terr ible to try to get out once they are in?

I know you know what they are. Cattle panels are a welded wire with holes about (Bob thinks 6 x 6 inches square that sounds awful big to me) and the panels are 52 inches wide by 16 feet long. They would make a wonderful fence if a person could afford them. They cost between $14 and $17 each. I have a hoop house made using 4 of them. So, using them that way, they aren't too expensive if you figure $56 for a hoop house plus plastic or visquine cover. Or, $56 for 64 feet of fence. That is less than $1 per foot for a fence, plus posts. If you didn't need a very long one that is not bad.

The hoop house is 16 feet long, approximately.

Jeanette

Russ, we cross posted. LOL, you need something to do. Why don't you try some winter sowing? Go over and look at that thread. Not too sure what veggies you could do that with, but you could plant some flowers in them.

Maybe you could do some cool weather plants that way. I wouldn't recommend tomatoes. 'course someone will come along and say you can. That's ok too.

Are either of the goats pregnant?

Is there a sticky thread to read about strawbale gardening for us newbies? So many threads to go through, to find out the basics?

Think I lucked out there Jeanette, they aren't showing yet.
I will probably use them this summer to keep the weeds down, No need for me to mow what I don't consider lawn. It has all kinds of weeds that goats love. Just need to fence off a couple choke cherry trees I planted back there.
Winter sowing??? I may have to settle for winter sewing, LOL
I could spread some wild flower seed in a small area that I don't intend for veggies now. but it will take until sometime late March or April for the seed to get close to soil, and the sparrows would just think I'm feeding them. Think I'll wait. lol

taters way back somewhere there is a good article.
think I may be able to find it. I'll check