Melissa: Still here, my Buckeye friend.
1. I've been enjoying the great photos and conversation everyone is posting.
2. I've been trying to gather evidence/info & photos of my garden and my Daddy's garden. Mine has a big problem; his is beautiful.
I'm going to need some help and advice. I have an idea what's wrong, but want to hear the group's opinion.
I'll post my progress and issues by the weekend.
Straw Bale Gardening - Part 3 - the saga continues
Just planted my maters and peppers in my bales today...I plan to fertilize them with some dilute compost tea, as soon as I finish putting the fence up. (Dusk approaches and so do the deer!)
pam
Say not so Ken! Our fearless straw man can't be having problems! Hope it's nothing serious.
I got my tomatoes and bush cucurbits planted on June 4. Later than many of you but not so late up here. I put in Rutgers, Early Girl, Roma, St. something or another - another plum tomato, Sweet 100's by seed on top of the bale in dirt, and Yellow Globe. I need to put in another Beefmaster. I fertilized half tonight with Mighty Plant and half with fish emulsion. My bales are quite loose - more than I think you recommended. I used a long wooden spoon to open the bales and put potting soil down in there, then planted the maters in very deep. They look SO happy. I think that extra warmth in the bales benefits them. I am going to trial using Messenger on 1 plant in each bale - I put 2 to a bale. I think I will try it for 6 weeks and see what difference it makes for plant growth and flower production. I also sprinkled seeds of dwarf zinnia, short marigold, green and purple basil, cilantro, cosmos, dwarf Teddy sunflowers around the edges of the bales. We'll have to see if they need soil to germinate or not. Its going to be cool and rainy for the next week so I'm expecting things to be sort of at a standstill till it heats back up again. Thats what I know folks. I am very expectantly waiting now!
Andrea
Well, folks, I need your help!
There’s got to be a logical explanation why NONE of my plants are growing and just look terrible overall.
Here’s a sample pic of a tomato that needs a miracle.
Check out my diary and all the pics I posted from 5/31/06 forward. Compare my pics with the beautiful pics of my Daddy’s bale garden.
This is my 2nd planting of about 95% of my plants. My first planting did the same thing and I attributed it to the many cool May nights. However, we never had a frost and I went back and checked the weather records for the same time in 2005 and we had just as many cool nights then. My garden did great last year, so I just don’t believe now the weather is the culprit.
I called my wheat straw supplier up and asked him if he treated the bales with anything. He said the only thing he added was some Nitrogen fertilizer. So, I don’t think my problem is any residual herbicide in the bales. If there were, wouldn’t the grass around the bales also be affected by the run-off? The grass around my bales is healthy and grows very thick.
NOTE: my supplier did say that growers DID sometimes use 2-4-D and another chemical he couldn’t recall.
Also, I didn’t have anywhere near the wheat straw sprouts that I had last year. The wheat that did sprout was very thin and turned yellow very shortly. Last year, I had to give several “haircuts” to my bales.
I didn’t over fertilize my plants. I’m doing the same as my Daddy, about a cup of Miracle Gro/plant/week.
Now, I did water my bales more than Daddy, who stopped watering twice a day and only watered once in the evening. For the life of me, I just don’t see how you can over-water.
Daddy said I could be doing just that, over-watering, and “washing the minerals out of the bales”. Again, I don’t see how since the bales are in a constant state of decomposition and whatever they add to the plants is an ongoing process.
I did research some on the internet and saw photos where different vegetables looked similar to mine when they had some sort of mineral deficiency.
I’ve considered some sort of disease or blight, but would EVERY plant be affected?
Oh, I still get mushrooms sprouting, but this has always seemed like a good thing. Some mushrooms look different than others, so is that a clue of any kind?
I have pulled up some sample plants to check the root system and each plant has healthy roots.
I have not noticed any sort of pest/bugs damaging the plants.
Other new bale gardeners have emailed me with similar problems, but I get just as many emails from those who are doing just fine, and couldn’t be happier.
Kent, this is the paragraph I picked out of what you wrote that I have a question about:
Also, I didn’t have anywhere near the wheat straw sprouts that I had last year. The wheat that did sprout was very thin and turned yellow very shortly. Last year, I had to give several “haircuts” to my bales.
I think there is a difference in how you are fertilizing or as your father said you are washing all the goodies out.
Jeanette
Oh no Strawman! Please try to stay strong for the rest of us! :)
I popped my tomato and pepper plants in their bales around 11 am today and put up the fence. I was going to water them tonight but DH dragged me off for ice cream (boo hoo :) ) and I didn't get back until 9 pm. Interestingly, the tomato plants did NOT look wilted at all, and in fact had perked up a bit from when I'd first planted them. The peppers were a little droopy, but they'd been looking pretty sad in their containers anyway. As previously mentioned, I plan to fertilize/water them (tomorrow morning now) with dilute compost tea.
Strawman, I'm new to gardening and don't know for sure what your problem is, but your daddy might be right...I noticed when I watered a particular bale a LOT, dark brown water would run out the bottom...so at least some "good stuff" was leaching out. Although the bales will continue to decay, if more goes out than decays on a daily basis, you might be losing some nutrients. I noticed in your picture that the bales are sitting in water, is that rainwater or leaching water? Maybe try testing the N level in your bales?
Just a thought, again, I'm new to all this. :) Why this is happening this year when it didn't last year, I have NO idea.
pam
Gee, Kent, I really am sorry to hear that. My plants were waning like yours until I started feeding them the manure tea. I'm such a newbie to bale gardening, I hate to even hazard a guess. The first thing that popped into my mind was: Did you and Dad get your bales from the same place? Are they the same kind of hay/straw? Perhaps different types of hay/straw have a totally different biological stucture - like maybe yours are very alkaline, very acidic, very something that isn't working?
Jeanette: well, all I can say is I haven't done anything different this year than last. But if every plant is on the "disabled list", then maybe I leeched the bales too much and the Miracle Gro just wasn't enough to compensate. I'm just trying to figure out what the key ingredient is that I'm missing.
Pam: I'm not ready to "bale out" just yet! :-) The ground under the bales is heavy in clay and will not drain very well after a rain/watering.
hmstyl: good questions: I'm using all wheat straw; Daddy is using Oat. I used both last year and had great results. As I mentioned in my diary, Daddy had a friend that got 5 bales of Oat straw from him and the friend had the same problem I did. I haven't been able to catch him to critique what he and I may have done similar.
If they're sitting in water, wouldn't they eventually absorb that water? I'd be inclined to think they're getting too much water too. I've got some plants that are still in their cups that were sitting in water after the rains last week, and they too looked puny and yellow. As soon as they started to dry out a big, they looked a LOT better.
I was adding some more plants to my bales today, (I've still got 5 or 6 empty bales) and I noticed that the bales were still damp inside, and still nicely composting... I've been so busy, and have NOT been watering every day, the last couple of weeks, not even every other day, we've not been overly hot though.... but in the last week, the only watering they got was what rain we got. The plants look fantastic. Why don't you try cutting back to watering once a day and see. Maybe this set of straw you've got retains moisture better than other batches you've had?
You might try giving them iron too.
I was beginning to think I got bum straw, because I had several plants die, and most were looking ill. I'm so glad they turned around. I don't think the bales were quite ready when I first planted, and I also think the warmer temps are helping a lot too.
Kent, here is a side by side, a "waterlogged" plant that I planted today, next to one that has been in the bale a couple of weeks.... you can see the outsides of the bales are pretty dry, but the insides were still moist...
This message was edited Jun 9, 2006 11:41 PM
Kent,
I wish my plants looked as good as yours! LOL They are still puny but
seem to be coming along. I may be a bit premature but I think the marigolds are working on the slugs. Keeping my fingers crossed.
Melissa: that is a good side-by-side comparison; I cut back last week on watering so we'll see if that helps.
Cajun: I've never seen a slug in a bale; I busted up all 30 of my bales last year and never saw any live creatures in them; only earth worms under the bales. Do they come in the medium you have around your plants?
In the evening I've found slugs up on the bales, but I set mine down in an unmown field. Since then I cut down all the grass around them. I don't think they will climb that prickery bale.
I must have the toughest slugs known to man. I think they would climb a pine cone mountain. LOL I killed slugs for over an hour one night before I planted the marigolds in with the peppers. They were also on the bales with the tomatoes but they didn't touch the tomatoe plants. Maybe they just don't like tomatoes. At any rate, they don't seem to have eaten any more of the pepper plants. It is hard to tell with all the previous damage. I saw them coming out of the bales. I have landscape cloth under the bales and we keep the grass around the bales cut very short as they are in the front yard. My husband is an avid golfer and he likes the lawn to resemble the greens at the golf course so we don't have any long grass in our yard. I have seen the birds picking a few bugs off the bales but the slugs only come out after dark. Too bad all the birds want the early worms. *g* ( I heard that groan) LOL
One of my bales is killing everything that goes in :( My buttercup squash died and this other one is on the way out. There were lots of mushrooms (the black in the picture) but they were on a few of the bales and the plants didn't die so I am guessing it wasn't the shrooms.
All the bales were prepped a long time ago and then sat for a week or more before planting.
These watermelon and charentais melon are doing just fine though!
Sorry to hear about your struggles Kent, don't give up!
My plants were not looking so hot either, until I started feeding them more and watering them less.
In addition to the 6-10-10 sprinkles around the edges of half my bales, and the composted manure tea, I have also began watering with alfalfa tea every 3 or 4 days, and my plants are now doing great.
Sorry, no pictures, I don't have a digital camera or a home computer, I do my internet at work (which is fine with my employer, since I am in a call center, and between calls we are allowed to use the internet, lucky me!)
Hi all ! We have our bales up at our lot where we're building since it's where we spend most of our time these days. The tomatoes were struggling even though they were composted per instructions, and yes Kim, we had lots of the black mushrooms!
So...we have modified. Yesterday we carefully pulled out the plants and took a hori knife and cut out a circular piece in each bale, threw in some potting soil and re-planted. They look great today, no longer looking like they're going to croak on us :)
And a close up
bluekat: another bale mystery on why some plants thrive and others don't
dea: come to think of it, Daddy said he added some soil mix in the hole he made for his tomatoes which look terrific
haleysaunt: I'm cutting back on water, too; although at the beginning of transplanting we just have to be more aware of the water needs of a young plant; perhaps that's more of a key than just indiscriminate watering without any regard to leeching the plants or over watering; just speculating
Big Red: how about weighing in on this; how's your bales doing?
I'm not Blukat, but I will say that mine look ok. No great shakes. They all have blossoms. I decided today they need "stuff". So, I am going to try Cal-Mag tomorrow. That will give them the minerals besides fertilizer.
Will let you all know if it works. I haven't used any Epsom Salts on mine but that is strange because I do use it on almost everything. But, maybe because they are farther away from the other things, I forgot to give them some. I am not sure if they would need that besides the Cal-Mag, but I normally do give my tomatoes ES.
Jeanette
I have ten bales: three from one person, and seven from Lowe's. The Lowes bales were much, much tighter and much slower to decompose, but they should have been well ready when I put plants in. But nothing is growing in them. The three looser bales are growing very nice tomatoes (comparable in size to those growing in garden soil) and a squash plant.
I suspect an herbicide in this case. I water the bales equally, about once every two days (it's been rather cool here) or as needed. If nutrient runoff were the problem, my looser bales would be more empty of nutrients than the tight ones, of course. In the future, I will be very, very careful about where I get my bales: this is such a big variable in this method. And it's a good reminder for me anyway, as I use bales for mulching the main garden and for the chicken runs... don't want poison in there with the veggies and chickens, either.
Kent, that's disappointing; I'm sorry your bales aren't doing better.
Jnette - could you tell us about Epsom Salts? I am confused about what they are good for. Are they only recommended for some kinds of plants? I know that rosarians use them, and now you're saying you use them on tomatoes. Sounds like anything that you want to promote blooms or fruiting.
BTW - I had a bottle of old out of date multi-vitamins and I put half a tablet beside each plant to dissolve. Did the same in my containers at home. Have no idea if this is going to help but it couldn't hurt. My bales were very loose also and I also packed potting mix into each planting space. They seem to be ok although they've only been in for about 8 days.
What I'm waiting to see is if the flower seed I sprinkled around the edges will germinate and grow. I just used marigolds, dwarf zinnia and basil. I had one bale fall apart so I sowed all kinds of flower seeds into the pile of straw. I'm betting that it will need some soil for the little hair roots to hang onto though so I might sprinkle some mix into it. What the heck its a big experiment anyway!
Kent - I'm crossing my fingers for ya buddy! I was re-reading your post and thought it was interesting that you had growth of wheat grass and then it turned yellow. I had the exact same thing. But I attributed it (perhaps incorrectly) to too much nitrogen causing a burn. Remember I poured a cup of N on my bales the first day and then did the half cups after that. But I let my bales stand for at least 20 days after prep. Is it possible that you've got enough residual N in the bales that the plants are being burned? If there are mushrooms growing I have to believe that its not chemicals - aren't they pretty sensitive?
We had temps last night down to 47 degrees. So I'm not in much of a position to discuss anything till we get enough warm weather to get the plants really growing.
alyrics: I don't think it was too much Nitrogen during bale prep; bales heated up and then cooled just like clockwork and I watered plenty.
Again, I'm getting redundant, but I did all this last year and everything was beautiful; I'm writing to my County Extension Agent today, a PhD, and giving him all my info including pics from last year to see if I can get him to test the bales or least come out and see for himself.
I almost wish he'd find some disease or bacteria, or whatever, so at least I'd have peace of mind that I didn't do this myself with overwatering which I still can't grasp.
Maybe I need to go to Over-Watering Anon!!! LOL
I can see it now: "Hello, my name is Kent, and I am an Over-Waterer."
On a good note, my cukes have picked up and some of the tomatoes are doing better; the zucchini is blooming heavy, too
Dea, what a fabulous view of the countryside! Looking over your garden to the hillside must be a wonderful thing! I home you are building your home there and taking advantage of that view. Looks like your maters are happy!
Let's start Round 4 - I know some have said when we get up to around 200 it takes a while for the thread to load on their computer. I'll post links to all the threads.
Kent
Sounds good Kent. I am dial-up too.
I think your problem is the tighter bales from Lowes. They do take longer to decompose. I bought bales from 2 different places and while the growth of the plants might be the same, also the tightness, I am getting grass out of one source and I don't like it. I will not buy from her again. Too bad 'cause she is a small feed store and local
Epsom Salts has magnesium in it and I think it balances the PH. I use it on all of my plants. I really think it helps. I put a half a cup on each rose in the spring and again later on. I plant the tomatoes with it. (when I remember) LOL. If you use it, do not buy it in the garden area of the store. Just like Peroxide. Buy them both in the drugs..
I forgot to put the link to Part 4 - let's jump to that
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/614124/