Chinese 5 Pepper that Melissa sent from Ohio. Never heard of it until this year.
I keep going on about this, I know, but I have to have more of these next year!
They are hot, about like Jalapeno's to me. I'll pick one off and eat it while I'm watering the garden. Of course I end up drinking about a gallon of water, too!
I'm waiting for them to turn colors.
Okra
Productive and still doing well; the only plant, so far, that I've had to spray with Liquid Sevin.
Those blasted Japanese Beetles love okra! You'd think Noah would have killed the 2 he had!! :-)
I know when I get to heaven, I'll probably find out what Japanese Beetles are good for, but for now I'm a little skeptical as to their contribution to the scheme of Life.
I can see adding a tight rope type system to these, too.
They are pretty sturdy but with those big leaves, a strong wind will do some damage.
You are funny strawbaleman. Your garden looks wonderful. Good work!
Last year I covered my okra plants with that gauzy row cover and it worked well to keep the JBs off. Of course, it helped that the chickens ate them, too.
When JB first showed up in my area, (long time ago), we used the traps and emptied them every morning in a bucket, then I poured a kettle of boiling water in the bucket to kill the beetles and keep them from escaping . Nest step, dumping it out in the chicken coop. The chicken loved them and in effect, we ate them, since we ate the eggs.
Anyway, nothing to do with stawbales, just an aside. :-)
roseone:
Ashes to ashes
dust to dust
Hens eat the beetles
then pass'em to us!
Kent
:-)
Happy Birthday Kent :)
Dea
Dea: 10-4, thanks; it's my 19th anniversary of being 29!!!
KR
That makes you 29 with 19 years experience. LOL Your garden looks great. I am picking cherry tomatoes every day now, about 7 or so. The problem I am having is that the bales are decomposing and becoming loose causing my cages to lose their footing. One squash plant is now laying over on the other. We may be moving from this house to a spot on the mountain about 5 miles away. Maybe not quite that far. It is quiet there with no traffic. We can have animals and grow a garden. I will miss the creek very much but there is a fishing pond. If we move I will still come over here to take care of my bale garden until it is finished. Still have to feed the ducks too. LOL Then when I dismantle the bale garden I am thinking of making a strawberry bed with it. What do you think of this idea?
Happy Birthday Kent! Today is my son's Birthday too, he's 16. :-)
Ahhhh to be 16 again and know what I know now!
Thats amazing Kent - me too! DH and I decided last year with some heavy numbers approaching that we would just dial back to what we felt like.
Some of my bales are sinking in, 1 is about 1/3 the size it started out as. I suppose they will grow in that too. This does point up the importance of getting heavier more compact bales to start with just like Kent advised last spring.
Cajun: that's another reason I like using a trellis; it takes the stress of the bales; also, my zucchini are off the sides of the bale, but still doing well; I have some squash in a double row that is supported much better; I think I'll start doing double rows only for squash & zucchini
Melissa: 16; what time that was; I got my license the day I turned 16 and had a double date lined up that weekend. I drove a '68 Mustang, 390 stock motor that would fly, factory air, 8 track tape, and mag wheels; it was beautiful!!
Watch out Kent you will scare her. Having a child 16 now days is pretty scary to me. Guess my age is showing. LOL
Have a good one Kent.
Picked 18 cukes yesterday. None of you told me the difference between pickling cukes and slicers????
Jeanette
Happy Birthday Kent,
Just to remind you that it marks 5 months to Christmas! Don't think I'll mention age!
LOL jnette, my daughter is 17 1/2.
My notion to picklers and slicers are the picklers are little ones, a couple inches long, and slicers are bigger. :-)
I just recently found this thread and I've never grown a vegetable in my life. But...this is just too exciting. It won't start to cool down here much until November. Is there something I can plant this late in the season just to give this a try? I only bought four bales so maybe just a few things? Tomatoes? Peppers?
Its infectious Nematanthus - watch out.
You better get some advice from someone down your way. I doubt my 5b compares to your 9a in many ways. Good luck!
Nema, I'm with Alyrics, in that I am in zone 5 also and don't know what to tell you since we have such a short season. You might get something. I would think cucumbers or squash maybe. Kent might tell you about lettuce, spinach. maybe broccoli, bush beans for sure I would think. What do you think Kent?
Yesterday I gave a friend a dozen cucumbers about 8 inches long and she told me very quietly that when I told her I was going to plant cucumbers in strawbales she didn't think I would get any. We had a good laugh.
Jeanette
You can grow almost whatever fall crops are generally grown in your area. With a 1-2" layer of compost on top, you can grow very nice greens.
Nema: welcome aboard; I didn't check but be sure to go to www.frappr.com/strawbalegardeners and join our map!
Jnette: no experience with any of those veggies you mentioned.
Speaking of the person who said you probably couldn't get cukes out of strawbales, I had a good chuckle, too. It reminded me of the quote way back in our 1st or 2nd thread where someone was told that the only thing you can grow in wheat straw bales was wheat! :-)
Kent
Wow! I found a guide to planting veggies in this parish and there's all sorts of things that I can plant in August to September here. I'm thinking bush limas or snap beans, tomatoes & broccoli. Going to go get the ammonium nitrate today. This is exciting! Until the hurricane last year, my yard was too shady to try any veggies at all. Now the trees are gone and it's full sun all day. I wanted to plant veggies but didn't have the equipment to dig a bed. Plus, my soil is really sandy. I think it would take a lot of prep to make a good bed. This seems like the perfect method for me. Thanks so much for sharing your experience!
Nematanthus - now that is a good way to make lemonade out of lemons. Good for you, maybe you'll show a lot of other people something new also. I've got my bales in a field where the topsoil was stripped off to sell.
I have mine on top of construction sand. I don't know why they always scrape the top soil off when they build but it takes forever to do anything with it. The sand is like cement so this was a great way to use that space instead of weeds. But, I love not having to get down on all fours to pick produce or weed. Actually, I can't do that so if it weren't for this or raised beds I wouldn't be able to garden. And no weeds!!!
Let's start Part 5 since we're almost up to 200 posts.
It helps those with dial-up.
Part 5: http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/631772/
Kent
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This message was edited Nov 12, 2006 10:07 PM
