Straw Bale Gardening - Part 4

We got back from our trip to La. at 3:20 this morning. DH did the yard work and I helped with the weeding. I was amazed at how much the bale garden had grown while I was away. I have a few cherry tomatoes looking rather smart. I have some cute little cucumbers about an inch to 2 inches long. I have a few peppers with small fruits and my eggplant also. I have blooms on my yellow squash. Here are the pictures I took this afternoon. Don't laugh!

Here is another pic. I don't know how to post more than one with each post. Sorry.

These were 2 puny little plants about 3 inches tall when I left. I planted them the day I left, in a spot where a pepper did not survive the slugs. I am amazed by their progress. I am getting 4 more bales to plant the rest of my tomato plants. I have a bunch of the heirlooms I got from the plant give away still to plant. I hope they do as well as these 2 did.

Cajun: you're doing a great job; as far as the photos, DG won't let you post but 1 photo per post.

An overhead shot of my bale garden. (Standing on the porch roof of my daughter's playhouse.) Like the Pheonix, my plants have risen from the grave to make a decent comeback.

Left to Right:

1st row: Better Boys doing well. I'm suckering this whole line. First time ever to see the yield I get from that process. I'm liking the straight-line trellis. Works very well instead of pounding in all those stakes and tying, tying, tying up tomatoes

2nd row: all varieties of Peppers. Doing better; getting enough for meals; still waiting for the Habaneros in the back portion of the row to get going

3rd row: Cukes; tons of blooms and little cukes; don't know why they call these bush cukes when they run; they always do; back part of the row is Yellow Squash

Offset behind 3rd row: Heirloom tomatoes that Melissa sent from Ohio; had to add longer stakes last night; plus 4 hills of Okra; they are doing decent

Back Left Row: German Johnsons; some doing OK; some still puny

Back Middle: Parks Whoppers; ditto here, too; arch trellis works well

Back Right: Zuchinni; producing well; at this size they are vulnerable for any thunderstorm with some wind, but they held up well last year with strong roots and are doing well this year. You can bring them back to the center of the bale without breaking them if they get blown over one side.

Fall preview: I'm already planning on trying some Collards in the bales that hold up.

Next Spring: Compost Tea and/or some other liquid nutrient for sure, along with some sort of drip system

(Edit for misspelling)

This message was edited Jun 24, 2006 7:34 PM

Ken,
Your garden looks great. I am pleased with mine at this point as long as I don't think about all you guys with your big ole tomatoes hanging in bunches. LOL At least now I won't be ashamed should that reported actually come out. I am leaving tomorrow for a week to cook at youth camp. Then home for one day and back to camp for another week. I have a friend from church watering for me. I am looking forward to another noticable jump when I get back. I'll take more pictures.

I finally took some pictures. You'll have to excuse how 'leafy' the area looks. I'm not in charge - my friend is letting me have my bales in their field so I'm not mowing. If I get around to it.....! - LOL - I will lay some newspaper down to keep the weeds at bay. Almost all my tomatoes have flowers on - I planted on June 4th. Seems like longer but I am pretty happy with what I've got so far.
I fertilized with Mighty Plant the middle of this past week, which has trace elements and also harpin protein in it.

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d25/alyrics/Tomatoes6-24002.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d25/alyrics/Tomatoes6-24001.jpg

alyrics, I hope you don't lose your plants to bugs hopping on from nearby tall weeds.

Salem - don't do this to me! So far I haven't found one bug on the plants, just slugs crawling on the bales in the evenings. Or in the case of last night - eating a mushroom ? - go figure. I will heed your advice tho - thanks.

Picked my first ripe tomato from my straw bales today, a small Stupice. It's small and split but it's ripe!

I can't wait

I received an email today from another bale gardener who had a good, but simple solution for his bales that had started to fall apart:

he just compressed the bales together and put up a couple of stakes on the ends to hold the straw in place and keep the bales denser. Here's the photo he sent.

Kent

I know it's too late now, but for future reference. My hubby anticipated the twine baled straw coming loose, so he used wire he had in the barn from former wire tied bales and wired them together before we did anything else to them.

I missed it, and can't find it, about the newspapers or cardboard. What was that about?

I think it was Alyrics that said you used the Mighty Plant? How was it? How did it work? On tomatoes?

Are you guys saying the slugs are crawling on the straw??? I wouldn't think they would like the feel of that prickly stuff??

Jeanette

Jeanette,

The cardboard discussion came out of my post on 6/13 in this thread. It was an excerpt from an email I received.

Jnette - Mighty Plant is an 18-18-18 fertilizer with some harpin protein in it. It's made by Eden BioScience and I got it thru a DG co-op this spring. I like the product and the Messenger product also, which is 100% Harpin Protein. Among other things it is supposed to turn on the plants immune system making it bigger and stronger and accelerate the production of flowers and fruit.

I though the same thing about slugs on straw bales but there they are so they got up there somehow.

Yes, I have some Mighty Plant also. And I know how it works. However, I did have a problem with Messenger and wrote to BioScience with it and never got a response.

The problem was that after my rhododendrons bloomed and I deadheaded them, I sprayed Messenger thinking it would give me some super blooms for next year. However, it did give me very nice new growth, but the plant did not set buds for next year like it was suppose to. I hope I did not ruin my plant.

I put Bloom Plus on my tomatoes yessterday. Will let you know.

Jeanette

I picked these today from the one plant in my straw bales. Most plants are really starting to grow again. Most of my tomatoes are setting fruit with the Mexico, really taking off.

Ooops, forgot the picture!

Here's one of the Mexico tomato plants, the most vigorous tomato I'm growing. Now about 5 1/2 feet high.

A close-up of Better Boy tomatoes.

This is the other Mexico plant and the Yellow Crookneck squash.

Edited to add: The tomato plant on the right is an Amish Paste.

This message was edited Jun 27, 2006 8:45 PM

Jnette - Since you are supposed to use Messenger every 3 weeks I wonder if one application was enough? It sounds like maybe you deadheaded away the lateral bud growth that next years flowers come from -could that be it?

No, I've been growing Rhodies for years and know how to deadhead. And, it hasn't been 3 weeks since I used it on them and there is no sign of buds setting. If the new growth didn't look so final I wouldn't worry. Guess I will give it some more time, but I sure do hope they bloom next year.

Big Red, your tomatoes look great. What are the Mexico toms?

Jeanette

Jeanette, reported to be a tomato brought into this country from Mexico. A large, pink, beefsteak variety. I can't tell you anymore than that, it's my first year raising them.

Big Red, your bale garden looks great! Nice and neat - and very healthy plants. My garden looks like yours .....gone wild! My squash plants totally slid off the bales on to the ground, my bales are collapsing and they lean at different angles. The pumpkin plants are spreading across the space between the bale rows, as are the cantelopes. Have all your bales held up that well? How do you do that?

Jnette, sent you D-mail on the rhodies.

My bales are also falling apart. I think the ammonium sulphate accelerated the dickens out of the decomposition process. My tomatoes look great - I am so pleased.

hmstyl,

Glad to hear your's are doing well too. I pounded a metal fence post at each end of my bales before I started. They seem to be holding up well even though some have shrunk about 6 inches in length. Here's a pic of how I started them.

Big Red, I remember that photo well. Seems like a long time ago. And no leaves on the trees back then.

Pay Dirt At Last!!!!!

I have gleened my first ripe fruits from my hay bale garden! I know they don't look like much to the naked eye but they sure have me excited. One yellow Jubilee and one red Husky Cherry.

My garden is looking good for the most part. I need to water tonight so I am waiting for the sun to go down.

Hope you are all doing well.

Here is another shot of my garden today. It is really coming along.

Thank you Kent for this wonderful idea - so much easier on my back and no weeding!!!

I thank all of the members for your wonderful info on bale gardening. I have about 60 bales - 22 already planted, another 10 tomorrow and then the rest in 2 weeks.

From reading your comments I have a couple of questions and would like your input.

Do slugs get in the bales with any organic fertilizer or basically from using fish emulsion?

Who has experince with soaker hoses - I have read where some use them for hours while others use them for 20 minutes? Does anyone water their bales 2 Xs a day?

If I use weedcloth (or cardboard/newspapers) under the bales will this cut down on the amout of fertilizer I need to add on a weekly basis?

I do biodynamic farming - is anyone else using this method?

Thanks

Good for you Cajun !!! Lookin' good.

Jeanette

Hi Farming!

You are really taking on a lot.

The only one of your issues I can address are the slugs and not really that because I don't use organic fertilizer so maybe that is why I don't have slugs. I thought they didn't like the feel of the straw. But, others have said they get them. I thought maybe there were eggs or something in soil they added. Maybe not. Maybe it is the fertilizer.

Please explain biodynamic farming to me. Thanks, Jeanette

We're on our third (purchased starts) and fourth (seeds started) rounds of lettuces in the bales already, are adding taller struts and stakes to help prop up the Grrreat Grrand biomass of tomatoes going wild, and we have peppers on all the pepper plants out there (the white peppers have "declared" themselves from the word go; the peppers on the other three (mixed up) bell peppers are still all green, but growing); the Nu-Mex were taller, then shorter, then taller again than the Hungarian peppers, and all are flowering and starting to set fruits.
No ripe tomatoes yet - but I bet some of these will be within a week!
The gourds are sprawling out onto the ground, and are setting their first few; the "egg" gourds have the prettiest white flowers, while the swan-neck gourds have big and yellow flowers like zukes.
The cukes have begun to bear; the zucchini are already producing at one-a-day and will soon earn themselves a dramatic reading of Marge Piercy's wonderful poem, Attach of the Squash People: http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1606.html
...
Beg on the high roads: please
take my zucchini, I have a crippled
mother at home with heartburn.
...
Sneak out before dawn to drop
them in other people's gardens,
in baby buggies at churchdoors.
...
With a suave reptilian glitter
you bask among your raspy
fronds sudden and huge as
alligators. You give and give
too much, like summer days
limp with heat, thunderstorms
bursting their bags on our heads,
as we salt and freeze and pickle
for the too little to come.

That little book of necessary poems, The Moon is Always Female has not been out of print since 1980, I do believe. For me, this poem is one of the reasons why I keep it around and gift it to new gardening friends.

We're eating beans from the bush blue lake, and coco, but the dragon's tongue beans have not done at all well, and struggle along looking about the size they were five weeks ago; scrawny and bug-eaten, but valiantly managing one bean between the lot of them. We're stuffing lettuces between them now that are doing fine, so I worry that it's old seeds or something.

The bales set up long-sides-adjacent are holding one another up pretty well; the five-bale set that has tomatoes and peppers are beginning a rhomboidal tilt towards the heavier tomatoey side, though.



On Biodynamic gardening and farming -
The term was used by Rudolf Steiner, a polymath genius, writer, and practical yet spiritual man of the last century, and is used these days by folks who also talk about sustainable agriculture practices. He developed a particular recommended composting system (recipe?) including dandelion, nettle, oak bark, yarrow, valerian and chamomile; other scientists and gardeners have expanded on the ideas, and there are international organizations of folks who are deep into these methods.
Biodynamic ideas include organic methods, cover crops and green manures, liquid manures and composting (and making and using compost teas), planting by the moon and noticing seasonal cycles, companion plantings, dense planting methods, and bringing an unabashed sacred intent to one's gardening (no matter what one's core beliefs).

Here's some good reading:

ATTRA, National Sustainable Agriculture Info Service notes on current biodynamics
http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/biodynamic.html
prowling their general website is informative and edifying also: http://www.attra.org/

Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association
http://www.biodynamics.com/biodynamics.html

Hampton Court Biodynamic Garden:
http://www.peagreenboat.co.uk/


We use some of these methods, planting by moon signs and using organic methods to bring this long-neglected (rental) yard back to life, but are just learning about and not using the particular goodies in our compost heap (well, except for the nettles, which keep coming up, here). Tell us more about your use of biodynamics, please! (perhaps that should be a new and different discussion thread - there is one for planting by the moon).


blessings!

Rudolf Steiner's books are mostly out of print and pricey used, but I keep looking. I do have some newer books on permaculture and biodynamics but I think he said it best.

I try to plant by the moon but have misplaced my calendar in this recent move. Hopefully it will surface in a week or two. My testament to using the signs is a tooth extraction. I scheduled it for when the signs said bleeding would be less. It was... to the point I almost didn't bleed enough to form a clot in the socket!


ps... around here they warn you to keep the car/truck windows rolled up in July and August lest you find the vehicle filled with squash!

farming: 60 bales!!; now that's the way to jump into bale gardening!!!

IMHO, no matter what you put under the bales, it won't affect the fertilizer requirements the plants need while growing in the bales. The roots stay in the bales. And, based on MY experience, I'd fertilize/feed the plants more than once/week. I'm feeding my plants about every 3-4 days.

BTW, we'd love to have you join us at www.frappr.com/strawbalegardeners. Get on the map with us.

Kent

BEFORE and AFTER. Here's my better boys on 6/03. Sickly. Going down hill. I was struggling to figure out the problem.

Edited to say I posted the wrong photo. Let's try again.

This message was edited Jul 4, 2006 12:25 AM

BEFORE and AFTER. Here's my better boys on 6/03. Sickly. Going down hill. I was struggling to figure out the problem.

AFTER: Better Boys, 7/01