When to plant?

Kent,
I've had daily mushroom growth since the start, as the hay bales were stacked by the garden for a month or more before being laid out in the rows. After piling on a little horse manure, my special mix (green sand, bone meal, bio-char & coffee grounds), and a couple applications of liquid fish emulsion fertilizer, I have some bales that are softening up really well. The temperatures have not gotten over 90 degrees in some, but not in all bales. Most are the air temp to 70 degrees. We got our well working again and the water I'm using is very cold which might be keeping the temps down.

My question: At what point do I know for sure I can safely plant in the bales?

Thanks for your help,
Sundownr

Bev: just how long have you had the bales wet?

If it's been several weeks, then I see no reason why you shouldn't be OK.

Kent,

The bales have been wet for nearly two months now. It rained on them several times while they were stacked under the tree. I've been reading a bunch of other straw bale threads and believe at worst I can utilize the hard bales as "container" by sawing out the middle section. And, if the bales do start to heat up, I'll keep the cool water dripping through them.

I think I'm nearly ready to plant and didn't want to rush things!
Thanks so much for your advice!
Bev

OK, keep us posted.

I planted tomato seedlings yesterday. Some were very tiny, so I'll have some protection to devise for them. Most of the bales felt like "pudding" and the wine bottle digging tool worked extremely well. I was able to make enough of a hole with the bottle for the small seedlings in the few bales that were still a bit hard.

I filled in around the plants with a 50/50 mix of garden loam and potting soil, laid down the soaker hose, then mulched with grass clippings. I plan to add used coffee grounds and crushed egg shells across the tops of the bales because ants and slugs are in a live work all over my yard eating everything. So far the coffee grounds and DE are slowing them down a little. I may try using a paprika, or cayenne pepper, with cornstarch dusting to see if that helps.

Hi Bev,
I'm learning-
Why is the fence setup at an angle? Is this to be used as a trellis, or just to keep the critters out? What are you growing?
Thanks
GG

green_green,
It's an arched trellis set up made from scraps of concrete re-mesh (fence-looking stuff) and is supported by 7' metal fence posts with 1/2" rebar attached between them at the top. My reasons for this particular configuration are ease of vegetable harvest, and I want to try to utilize the trellis as a green house through the winter and next spring with some heavy clear plastic.

Hopefully you can see the arched trellis better in this photo. I have double rows of hay on one side for the tomatoes and garden loam and horse manure on the ground on the other side of the arch for KY Wonder green beans and a few cucumbers.

I planted 10 Roma VF and 4 DeBarao Black pasta tomatoes in the outer bales; 2 Moskvich and 2 Ruth's Perfect, 4 Better Boys, and 2 Rutgers so far on the inside bales.

If all goes well, I hope to do a lot of canning, freezing, and drying this fall. Meantime, I'm having fun!

We've had nearly constant rain for a week. As soon as I applied any kind of pest remedy, the rain would wash it away. The slugs (I think) have mowed down 75% of my small tomato seedlings, and are now after my beans and cuke seedlings that just broke through the ground! About the only tool I have left to fight them with is a pellet gun!

Bev: my neighbor called me the other day in a panic. Said something was eating her bale garden up, but she couldn't see any bugs, etc.

That night she went out to check and said slugs were everywhere!

I've just never experienced that, so I guess I'm lucky.

I'd catch a slug every once in awhile, but that's it.

I didn't realize they could do so much damage.

I really hate loosing those heirloom DeBarao Black pasta tomatoes! I found the dern slugs on my potato plants last night, too! Arrrggghhh!

The weather is supposed to clear up this evening and be dry for a few days, so maybe I can get back into the game, replant with Wally World maters, and have a beer blast for the garden varmints! I have plenty of KY Wonder beans for seeding, so I'll keep sowing 'til I can't any more.

Egads-I lost half of my plants yesterday in a hail storm.

green-green,
That's just awful!! I hope you can replant at least a portion of what you lost! I imagine you feel like I do, 3 steps forward and 4 steps back! Surely at some point we'll catch a break!

My hay bales came through with 3 of the DeBarao Black tomatoes surviving and doing very well. They are located in front of the monstrous "Moskvich" and "Ruth's" on the right end of the bales (pics were taken yesterday evening).

I may have a few tomatoes to eat in the next couple of days, yay!! This is my first tomato of the season (on one of the Moskvich vines), I've been keeping an eye on it all summer.

The maters and beans are nearly covering the arched trellis. It already feels like a jungle underneath, LOL (this pic taken a week ago... hmm, need more pics). I'm having so much fun with this trellis!!

Wow Bev, you jumped a whole month there so you had a lot accomplished in that month. You were being eaten out of house & home and then all of a sudden you had one almost ripe.

GG, did you get yours replanted and going now? It has been a really cold year so far for us. It still runs from the 50s to the 90s each week. Yes, I had to hail storms too. Huge hail. It seems like each time my plants start getting leaves they end up with great big holes in them from the hail.

My cherry tomatoes, I am trying some new ones this year, earlier ones, Galina are starting to ripen. Hope they are good.

LOL, I don't have enough to do!! I made a toad house today. Found a little frog and put him in there. Didn't hear any croaking so I hope he stuck around. (Yup, I still have hostas and perennials to plant. Some are almost to blooming. Said I didn't have enough to do. : b)

Jeanette

Jeanette

Jeanette,
This last week everything has grown like crazy. It seemed as if all was right with the garden world for us here: proper amount of sun, temps, and rain. I picked my first ripe tomato this morning and I'm so tickled!

I hate that you and GG had such terrible problems with the weather! I hope GG got some stuff replanted, too!

I would really love to see a pic of your toad house!! I'm getting ready to make a few myself.

Take care,
Bev

Lookin' GOOD!!! I like the trellis idea

Bev: keep up the good work!

Thanks y'all. We had that first ripe tomato in a salad tonight at dinner. It was so good that my husband and I nearly fought over it, LOL!

If you put down a pie tin with beer in it, the snails and slugs will go for it and not the garden. This is what my grandmother did and she never had problems with this critters. And this was the only reason she allowed beer near the house. I have tried it and it works. Do do need to keep the rain out of it. I set it in a bucket turned on its side. Mary

Mary,
I too have used beer in jar lids with much success to rid myself of slugs, but this year was more than I have ever seen and they were very damaging to the small seedlings. I also discovered 3 tomato hornworms stripping my bigger plants at night. I got rid of all the little devils, but I'm sure their cousins will be back again next year!

Thanks for the advice on the bucket for rain protection, I'd forgotten about that!

I just realized I got busy and never posted follow up pics of the arched trellis. Here it is covered with the KY Wonders on one side and tomatoes on the other. Those beans hanging down are about 10" to 12" long, and boy were they good!

There were a bunch of tomatoes growing way above the trellis that I couldn't reach to tie them to the trellis wire. They eventually fell back over and I harvested a couple handfuls of tomatoes from them.

Kent,
Here is a pic of a few clusters of "Ruth's Perfect" hanging under the wire for easy picking. At this point I was already starting to have trouble with blight and rot, so I was picking the tomatoes once they became blushed, then letting them ripen indoors. I still lost 3/4 of the tomatoes that came on the vines.

I definitely grew too many tomatoes, too close together, with the double row of hay bales on either side of the trellis. They did very well before the blight hit, but I was having to prune and tie them every other day to allow light and air through. Next year I will do just a single row of bales along the trellis, with two tomato plants per bale (same number per bale as this year).

Here's a view of the trellis looking down toward the house, tomatoes on the right, beans on the left.

Here's the devastating mess 3 weeks after the last pic when the late blight hit us so hard...

I did not get anywhere near the tomatoes or beans I had anticipated. I enjoyed and appreciated the few I did harvest. Everything that could have gone wrong, did, for me this summer! I've never seen such goofy weather or the herds of slugs. BUT, I really believe the hay bales promoted good health and growing conditions that kept most of my tomatoes alive when my neighbors quickly lost theirs! I still have tons of beautiful parsley growing in the bales, too. I am very pleased with my bale garden this year and will definitely do this again next year!

Kent: Thanks for spreading the word around about "straw bale" gardening and all your encouragement!!

Sundownr, What are those bottles hanging from your arch? Looks interesting. Mary

Bev: great pics! Arch looks great. Sorry about the blight.

My German Johnsons caught something again this year, but the rest of my tomatoes were spared.

I'm going to cut way back on them for next year.

Mary, Those are Possum Pots, my version of Topsy-Turvey pots. I had cherry and grape tomatoes planted in them. I'm writing a recycling article next month for DG that will contain video links on steps to make them. The arch will be shown, too, and what we used to make it.

Kent, I need to put up a lot of tomatoes and green beans, and don't want to cut back on the number of plants, but will spread them out more. I know everyone has an opinion on growing tomatoes, but I don't normally prune mine much. I had to this year and my experience has been the more I handle them the more problems I have, plus the more time spent. I'm thinking of building an additional trellis next year, lol.

Does anyone know if the "Late Blight" lives in the soil now?! I burned the affected plants and fruits, did not save the seeds, but fear it now lives in the hay bales/soil to reappear next year!

Bev, love your "hoophouse". Yours has much more class than mine. Really looks cool. Please don't be discouraged because of the lack of tomatoes. I had the same problem. I didn't get the blight. I don't know why I didn't get the tomatoes I expected.

I blamed it on the hay bales and the fact that I couldn't get started until late. I don't know what it was. Probably the weather. Besides the late start, the weather was so cold in the spring. Maybe the late start didn't matter because of that.

But, I don't even have the blight to blame mine on. However, I DID have a huge tomato on the 4th of July. The only tomato I got off of that plant the whole summer. Go figure. But, I don't normally get tomatoes until late August or September. LOL

Now you tell me if that isn't strange. Did you google late blight? Did you ask the tomato garu, Carolyn? You will find her on the tomato forum. Maybe she has some answers for you.

Whatever the problem, next year will be different.

Jeanette

Bev: I didn't sucker my tomatoes at all this year. The tomato forum at DG is great, especially anything posted by "Carolyn" (Dr. Carolyn Male). Whatever she says I "take to the bank".

I've read a little bit about the late blight, but I end up with more questions than answers. I'll check out the tomato forum then for 'Carolyn'. Thanks Jeanette and Kent!

Bev, I would, and I am sure Kent would, be very interested in what you find out. Never know, we may need the info sometime. Thanks,

Jeanette

Jeanette, I found the answers to my questions and more in this thread on the Tomato forum, posted by Carolyn:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1036429/ . I read a PDF file about the Late Blight on one of the site links that was very detailed and informative.

It seems the Late Blight is caused by spores that live in very specific conditions (cool, damp, dark) and too much heat or cold can kill it, and it must have living plants to sustain itself. So, it doesn't over-winter in the soil unless there is an infected potato tuber in the ground for it to live in. Late Blight is what caused the Potato Famine; taters and maters being in the same nightshade family can be susceptible to the same diseases. Extended UV rays can kill it. Burning the infected vines and rotted fruit also kills it. The spores cannot live in/on, or infect, the tomato seeds.

I feel much better now, knowing all this.
Thanks again folks!!

It sounds very complicated, but not if you take each sentence and kind of pick it apart, think about it. So do you feel that you can safely plant in the same area next year? I knw they say to rotate the crops but that is kind of hard to do with bales unelss you replace the bales each year, which you might have to do anyway. That should be the same as rotating.

As long as you burn the plants huh?

Kent is right, Carolyn's information is right on.

Jeantte

Jeanette, I just reread my previous post... I did ramble a bit, LOL. Sorry, I was excited! I don't believe there will be any problems planting in the same soil next year because the spores were most likely dead a couple weeks after they killed my plants (as I understand the information). I think I understand Late Blight a little better now, too.

My hay bales have almost completely turned to soft dirt/compost and look very good. I want to transplant my parsley out of the old hay bales and into the garden's raised beds so I can keep a cold frame over them. I hope to keep them alive all winter. Next year I will have new hay bales on the other side of my trellis where I had the pole beans this year. And the beans will go into that good composted hay from this year's tomatoes.

Yep, I believe it will all be better next year!

Hi Bev,

What are you still doing up? Isn't it late there? I normally only get West coast people this time of night. Love talking to you way over there.

I'm glad you have your problem solved and now you can make plans for next year's garden. That is the fun part. The cold frame sounds good. We usually have so much snow that you couldn't get to a cold frame. Even on our decks. Seems Bob is shoveling snow off of them constantly.

We had our cold spell, always get one in early October to freeze everything, kill all the plants, and then it warms up until almost Thanksgiving.

So, are your all ready for winter? What kind of weather do you usually get in the winter? I guess you can't really know from one winter to the next.

Well, I think I am going to head into bed and read a while. Goodnight,

Jeanette

Hi Jeanette, I'm having a little trouble sleeping these days and the computer doesn't help, just keeps me up later, lol.

Our winters are not too bad these days. Not much snow, and usually only a couple weeks of freezing weather scattered throughout the winter months. I miss all the snow we used to have when I was a kid. That was just 50 miles north of where I am now. You wouldn't think there would be that much difference in zones and weather in such a short distance, but we are at a lower elevation here I guess is part of it.

I better get off this contraption and try to sleep.
Goodnight to you too,
Bev