Newbie here. Please help me not mess this up! ;-)

Wow! Wish I had a local source with all those varieties!

I planted three tomato plants in my first bale. Since I'm not sure what I am doing, I want to make sure these three survive a day or two before adding the others. These timothy hay bales have been sitting out and wet for three weeks. I did not use any AN on them at all.

The first small plant on the left is a Sungold Cherry, the two large plants are Early Girl.

Looks good Jeff! Great score on the maters.

Doug

Kent, It was an amazing place to shop for plants. I'm lucky I got out of there without going bust!

Thanx Doug, we are learning as we go. I bought a bunch of maters hoping that a few of them will survive my rookie mistakes!

I went shopping for a good fertilizer / feed for my mostly mater garden. I ended up buying a Miracle Grow feeder hose attachment deal and a small box of Miracle Grow Tomato Food. Those little boxes of tomato food are about $5 each so I suppose this could get expensive over the course of the summer if I feed every week or so.

Doug, did I see you post somewhere about using some kind of slow release fertilizer that you only put down once? If so, could you tell us a bit more about it here? That might be the best route for me, and I would rather copy success than experiment on my own and kill everything!

I had gone to Lowe's and their garden shop and got so confused looking at the various feeding options. The Miracle Grow appears to be almost idiot proof so I thought I would give that a go to start with.

ALSO, since I just transplanted my plants into the bales... should feed them right away or wait a week or so? It seems that I have read where people have done both. Is there a best practice on this?

Thank you all for your help in getting me into this, we are having a blast!

Jeff

This message was edited Apr 27, 2009 1:49 PM

Jeff: if you're using the Miracle Gro, it won't hurt to water/feed right away.

Our local county Ext. Agent PhD says it's almost impossible to burn a plant with Miracle Gro since it's so diluted. That's one reason I like it.

Jeff I got the organic Miracle grow. Its a real stinker, but ...well... its organic! It says it will keep on working for up to two months, so far it has woked really well. A powder compost that I watered in . My potatoes love it. I dont know whether its the straw or the fertilizer but they are really jumping right now! E. Oh ... and no Burn!

Jeff, I just sprinkled some slow release organic fertilizer (or use Osmocote) on top of the bales after about two weeks and I never fed them again. They were still going strong late into October. They outproduced any that I saw planted in dirt.

Doug

Doug: about how much did you sprinkle on the bales?

I bought some Osmocote and thought I'd try some.

Kent, Doug & Eufaula; Thank you for your help!

I planted twenty three varieties of tomato and four kinds of peppers. After getting them all set we used some MG and watered them in good. I thought they looked a little rough after the transplant, but they are looking good this afternoon after yesterdays feeding and the rain we had today.

I appreciate everyones ideas!

This weekend we build the trellis system... then we wait. Knife in one hand... salt shaker in the other! lol

I'd guess about 1/2 cup per bale. Are you using hay this year? That may make a difference. At that point I didn't keep records. I planted 7 Better Boys today in last years leftovers in the enclosed rows. I'm waiting a few days to plant in the new bales. Two are new straw and two are two year old hay which seems to be ready, but I'm gonna wait to plant at the same time to see if there's a big difference. I'm off this week so I'll try and take a couple of pics of my new setup if the weather cooperates.

Doug

Jeff, salt shaker already???

D

Doug, yea I may be pushing it a bit! ;-) Guess I'll put that shaker away for a while. Jeff

Hi, I subscribed to Dave's Garden mainly to read this forum.

Kent, I read your article about bale gardening in Tideland Topics (our electric co-op) and decided if I want veggies this is my last option. My neighbor's 18 dogs use my garden as a latrine and they were filled with worms. Health department said no more using it for edibles. So here I am.

My bales are packed so tight that I couldn't get a plant in:
1. use trowel-no
2. got knife-nope
3. got bigger knife-no go
4. got bigger knife with serrated edge-ha!
5. husband got small saw- he gave up
6. husband got sawsall- exhausted at this point but we had lift off

We had the worst weather when I stared the bales. Temps in high 30's at night and really severe winds. In spite of it my tomatoes are doing wonderfully well and, to my surprise, there are two tiny cukes! I also planted peppers, watermelons just for fun, and zucchini.

Are you pinching out the side shoots on your tomatoes? Usually I do but my farm supplier said not to.

I'm gardening in Pamlico County, NC

Oh, yeah, Kent, you're cute too!

htcoe: good afternoon, my Pamlico Co. friend and new bale gardener!

Welcome, aboard!

I, too, started my bales when it was much cooler and it took longer to get them softened up.

But, they have really gotten better over the past 2 weeks. Yours will, too.

I'll definitely remember this post.

Probably the first mention of using a sawsall!

I usually sucker my tomatoes for the first 18 inches or so, but this year I'm about 80% leaning toward not suckering at all.

Some say by not suckering you get more tomatoes, although they may be a tad smaller, and the extra greenery helps in case some branches catch a disease or some other problem and you have to prune it off.

As for the "cute" part, it's amazing how these computer screens create such an optical illusion! :-)

So, jump on in the discussions. This has been our best year, yet, for new bale gardeners.

Jeff, your tomatoes, the ones you posted pics of, look great. Hey everyone, we want pictures!! I would love to see you guys cutting the holes with a sawzall. LOL

Can't believe you guys are so far. I have my bales but due to both my DH and I with problems with our backs and feet, they are still on the truck. Just a couple of days and I will have them down tho. AND started.

Jeanette

LOL, you guys just won't do . digger

I was suprised to see that I have fruit on two early girl plants. Isnt this way early? Is this a problem?

Ya its bad..I'll be there to pick them for you when they are ripe..LOL

It's a problem only if you get a freeze like we are suppose to tonight. Isn't that always the way it is? Things start blooming and then a freeze hits. If I were you I would watch the weather reports and cover them if it sounds bad.

Just went out a few minutes ago after 10 o'clock and brought in some plants.

Jeanette

Here is a pic of my bales as of today. Most of my plants seem to be doing well and many of my tomatoes have fruit on them now. Some of the bales have broken down more than I expected. I hope to have my trellis in place in the next couple of days so these plants have somewhere to go. Gee this is a lot of fun and I wish I had found this years ago!

Thank you to everyone that took time to offer advice and help me keep this project moving in the right direction!

Jeff

Hondo , the plants look so healthy.I enjoy going out in the morning with my coffee and just sit in a chair watching the day wake up . digger

Hi folks! I wanted to post a follow up to all of my questions from a few months ago. First off let me thank each of you that offered suggestions and answered my questions about this straw bale garden stuff.

This project has been more successful than I ever imagined. We grew a whole bunch of maters and peppers and had great success. I always said I wanted to grow more than we could eat and we managed to do that!

The straw bale garden (hay in my case) was very easy to set up and maintain. Everything grew well and was overall a pretty simple process. I see us doing this every year from now on. Matter of fact, I am already sketching out the layout for next year. I have a few ideas on how to improve my garden and add some different veggies than I had this year!

I wish I had found out about straw bale gardening years ago!

Jeff, congrats on your success! Our unusally nice weather this year probably had a lot to do with it. After saying that though I thought about last year (my first year) and I had tomatoes up through October although I did water considerably more. You are now considered "Officially Hooked on Bale Gardening" like the rest of us thanks to Kent the Enabler!!!

Doug

Hey, I'll be up your way the 5th of Oct. I'm going to Munchkin Nursery that morning and Bob Hill's Nursery that afternoon.

Jeff: good deal! I'm already busy planning my garden for next year, too! LOL

Just got Dr. Carolyn Male's tomato book today, to help me plan for next year's crop.

link: http://davesgarden.com/products/gbw/c/77/

Doug: I love to "enable"!!!! :-)