Greetings all.
This has been a heck of a year, and I'm reporting because the bales have been a lifesaver.
I decided to take up bale gardening back in July and dropped in 8 bales. After prepping them with bloodmeal and making sure that they were cool before planting, I decided to put in four corn plants and 12 cucumber plants. I had also put peas, beans and more corn in planters and will be using planters again in future, but the bales were a miracle.
I started the corn and cukes in peat pots while prepping the bales because it was very late in the year (relatively) and I wanted to see if I could get something - anything - to grow. Once the bales were ready, I cracked the peat pots open and dropped the plants into the holes that I dug in the bales. In addition, I put a little bed around the bales, in the hopes of starting a raised bed, and using the plant matter of the bales for the start.
Through August, the growth was wild. I could visibly see a difference in the plant sizes each day, something that surprised the snot out of my husband. In September, the cukes were sprawling all over the place (I did not trellis them), and the corn was nice and high. Then came the unexpected - Hurricane Ike.
Ike ripped out 6 of my 12 cuke plants and knocked my corn down to about 45 degrees off the ground. Ike also beat the snot out of the remaining cuke plants, and after the storm I was sure that there was not going to be a harvest. However, I hate to be beaten by anything - including the weather - so I propped up the corn plants with a bit of dirt, and mounded up the bases of the remaining cukes, dropped a little fertilizer on them and watered them.
Over the course of the next two weeks, the plants not only recovered, they positively thrived. Suddenly there were flowers all over the cuke plants and the corn put out the corns.
Then they all started to produce.
I got fifteen ears of corn off the four plants. That was enough for a corn feast for my husband and I - not to mention some of our friends. That means that there were three or four ears per plant. That is a LOT, especially since four ears per plant has been rare in my personal experience, and most plants seem to produce two ears - maybe three.
The cukes were the fun one. Once they started to produce, they would not stop. Most of the fruits were a minimum of 12" long when I took them into the house, often larger. And as fast as I would snip off a fruit, there would be another blossom to take its place and start producing. Most of the fruits were as long as my forearm and about as thick. One of them measured 24" before I took it in. BTW: My personal rule for bringing the cukes in for eating was to let them go until they just barely started to change from deep green to a slightly paler green, and thus I knew they were ripe.
In addition to size, was the quantity. I was bringing 3-6 cukes in, every other day. During October I had to be in hospital for a week and my husband brought me cukes to supplement the nasty bland food they serve. We gave cukes to our friends, our neighbors, everyone, and this was in addition to us eating them by the ton.
The cukes ran through October and November. I have just come back in from clipping the strings and turning the hay over, as I want to let it settle for the next round of baling. For two full months, we have been fed massive amounts of cukes from only 8 bales of hay, and only half the number of plants that I could ever think would feed us.
I'm looking at the back yard now, and figure that I could probably put another 24 -32 bales in, in three more beds, not to mention a lovely bed in the front that would be 6X2 bales in size. I think I could probably feed my husband and I, as well as a few others we know, on beds like this. Wow.
Best of all are the things you all know about. There were virtually no weeds in my bed, hardly any bad bugs (I think I found two slugs, and just tossed them out), and all I had to do was water it as needed. Today, when I turned and raked the remains, the scent was clean, and I saw just how much moisture the bales hold, too. It took me all of 30 minutes to get rid of the strings, break up the bales and smooth them out. That's FAST.
Thank you all for your posts about this fantastic way to garden - especially Kent for all the encouragement he has given. At this point, you've make gardening easy and fun for all the right reasons.
First Year Baler with Report
Way to go Hastur! Another one is hooked like me...
Doug
You have no idea. I'm looking at the back yard and thinking about bales along the fence to start some stuff climbing the fence, in the yard, around the house, everywhere.
I need to make friends with a hay farmer - definitely.
Hastur: good post.
Loving the way the bale gardening group is growing.
Sounds great. Did you use straw or hay? I have been bale gardening for 3 years now and this next year I think I will try alfalfa. The ones who have, report better luck with it. You might try a few. Good nitrogen.
Jeanette
I actually used something called "goat hay". It was second rate alfalfa, with a few stickers in it, that had gotten wet after being baled. Apparently, goats can eat it to their hearts content, but horses and cows cannot.
The stickers weren't hard to take out, at all. I just pulled a couple of them out when planting, and then a few more when I spread the rotten hay in the bed. I think that I got a handful of stickers total.
After reading all about the differences between straw and hay, combined with my own success, I am going to have to try the straw at some time. The only problem is that so far, all the straw goes for ridiculously high prices, and the hay is running 12-20 dollars per bale, unless I get goat hay. Not such a bad thing, though, since this was a wonderful experiment.
Thank you, Kent, for sharing this style of gardening. I've told my father, up in Maine about it, and he's starting to get ready to lay in some bales. He's 88 years old, and doesn't move as well as he used to, so he loves the idea of creating a garden that doesn't take any weeding. I've also convinced a couple of neighbors that I'm not a complete loony (it was the cucumbers), and they are thinking that a few bales might be the way to replenish their flower beds while growing some nice stuff.
12-20 dollars per bale????? Are they growing GOLD straw in TX? I can get it for $3.00. Maybe we need to go into business delivering straw to you!!!
Doug
Doug, we've all thought about that from year to year. Seems the price of fuel kind of has a habit of changing our minds when the product is available.
Jeanette
The hay/straw market around Houston fluctuates wildly. I've seen less action on the stock market during the dotcom bust. The bales I got for my garden were only 4/bale, but there was a hefty delivery charge because the gas prices were around 4/gallon at the time.
Yeah, I guess you have to get them home any way you can. Got a wagon??
Sorry, I know that's not funny.
Jeanette
Actually, it was funny, to me, but I have an unusual sense of humor. And if I had a wagon, I'd charge people to ride in it, full of hay, while bringing it home. That way they pay for the gas. *grin*
I was talking about a "Flyer". LOL
Jeanette
Hrmmm... 10 - 12 bales per bed, four beds and extra out front....I would have to have the balancing of Cirque du Soliel to pull that one off... although the sight would so be worth the looks on people's faces.