To me, this is the same principle as composting, and since you can't get the same density with the bales (without wasting a few), there is more exposure to air, and they dry out rather quickly (or mine did). Can one of y'all point me to a thread or post that discusses covering the bales with plastic (or something) to retain the moisture in the bales?
Ready, Set, Go Organic: 32 Strawbales
Bev- That's exactly what I was thinking. It's not very aesthitically pleasing, but I'm thinking long sides together and wrap every 2 or 3 together in plastic should oughta work. I'm trying to put together as much data as I can for teaching this method to others(including my friends 4H kids), and would definitely like to steer them toward organic growing.
My tomatoes are doing GREAT! The romas have some babies already, and the rest (many varieties) are full of blossoms. It's surprising to me how much bigger and more vigirous the plants in the hay are.
They do dry out quickly, we do a happy dance every time it rains, well I dance and hubby nods in agreement.
I KNOW! Yesterday (the Fourth) I was so thrilled- we got lots of rain, finally, last night. A lot of folks without gardens weren't so thrilled, though . . . . .
It rained here yesterday, too, almost all day! It started right after I watered everything... felt like I caused it to rain, lol. I have little mushrooms on my bales!! That's good, right?!
Here are some of my observations on the bales drying....
1. wind direction is important......my bales are in a very windy wide open site.......last my end to end bales dried out FAST......
this year i put them side by side, kept the rows short(7 bales) & covered just the west end bales with scraps of tyvek from building projects..........helped a LOT...bales
retained considerably more water. BTW I placed these bales from eat to west so only the ends faced the wind.....
2. Leaves on the tomatoes were still curling by the afternoon.......put up temporary windbreaks of plastic on west fence of garden...(prevailing wind direction)..
Voila!.....leaves stopped curling & watering was cut down to 5 minutes each morning.....
Foggy
This message was edited Jul 5, 2008 11:47 AM
Great info, Foggy! Thanks!
And YES, Bev- the mushrooms are a good sign!
Namaste- Suz
Wow, thanks for the info foggy! I'll definitely find something to cover the fronts of my bales (they face west). When you positioned the bales side by side, did you still plant the same number of plants per bale, as opposed to positioning end to end? Guess I'm wondering if the positioning helped or hurt the total number of plants you were able to get per bale.
I put some 5 ft. fencing down the center of the bales from one end of the row to the other....dividing them in halves & using the fencing as trellis to tie the plants to....
I put 1 tomato on one side(North side) & a lower growing plant on the other so i get 2 plants to a bale......in the case of peppers or herbs i put 2 or 3 plants on one side and 1 tomato on the other side. I put in more plants when end to end & that didn't work out..., but this works fine.
Foggy