Straw Bale Garden 2015 - July Update

We have finally reached the current update on our little garden for the year! I am very excited about this one, so please bear with me! :) 

By July 4th, we had been having rain seemingly non-stop for weeks. You can see this reflected in the un-mown state of my yard. Yikes! You can also see that the abundance of rain had brought my garden into booming good health. 

Left to right: watermelon, green beans, cucumber, two types of tomatoes, and carrots. 

Notice that my cucumber did not take the hint and grow up the wire. They opted to grow down, sideways, and then up along the Abe Lincoln tomatoes instead. 

The watermelon began to grow down the bale too. One lonely vine grew upward along the pole and the wire.

Here is our wayward cucumber vine trailing up into my tomato plants. He's got quite a good grip on them, so we're just going to have to allow this accident to keep on happening and see what happens. ;) 

I finally looked up the tomatoes we grew from seeds taken out of tomatoes we purchased at the store to find out what kind they are. They are Campari tomatoes; larger than a cherry but smaller than a slicing tomato.

The green beans continued to flower and grow. They are Tenderette green beans. The flavor is crisp and clean. I would almost say they taste a little bit sweet, as well. 

We are harvesting these guys a small handful at a time. So far I've washed them well, snapped the ends off, and eaten them with onion dip completely raw. Yum! :)

The Campari tomatoes began to show up. I have not counted them yet, but I would guess we've got a fair amount.

This year I have taken the time to look into the plants and pinch out suckers. The plants themselves so far are tall and thin. The leaves, flowers, and fruits all seem very healthy. Again, these pics are all from July 4th so far. 

I did not check closely enough to realize that this picture is blurry or I would have re-taken it. This is an Heirloom tomato. We do not have too many of these growing so far. I am guessing that might have something to do with the cucumber plant invading their space and grabbing onto them with intrusive tendrils. Do you happen to know? 

Our carrots grew taller every day. The greens would bend and fold in rainstorms, but that did not seem to stop them from reaching for the sky.

Cucumbers began to show up on the vine. We have had slow progress with them. There were only two as of July 4th. This might have to do with the too-close proximity of the plants. 

In this second year of straw bale gardening, I have become more convinced than ever that we need to do more bales next year. One type of plant per bale seems imperative. 

Strawberries have been sprouting in fours, but ripening one or two at a time. This little guy ended up being a nice, dark red color. The flavor was rich and sweet. We may not have many, but these are some of the best tasting strawberries we've grown so far. I just wish that they would grow larger. 

Here is the most exciting part! Female watermelon finally began to appear! Each little ovary was the cause of much enthusiasm as we scrambled to catch them flowering for pollination. 

Much to our chagrin, a good four or six of them never seemed to flower! I am sure they did, mind you. It did not matter what time we checked on them. They were always closed! Even as early as seven in the morning!

The above ovary dropped off, but this little lady to the right FINALLY caught us a break! She bloomed wide open on July 8th and we got to pollinate her with a stamen from another plant. We have very high hopes for this little miss, let me tell you! These are the Allsweet watermelon variety, and should grow long and large.

Also on the eighth, we brought in a small harvest of goodies from the garden and got picture proof! haha

Giraffe was way too excited to wait and even little Koala was begging for 'koo-kummers', so we had to cut off a few of these little guys. 

We brought in four under-sized Muncher Cucumbers in all, that day. Sure, they were not any larger than a pickle from the regular-sized pickle jar. One or two were also a light green in color. Even at that, they tasted absolutely delicious! 

These are our touchon carrots. That  same day we noticed this. The carrots were sticking up out of the bales. Impatience bore fruit, and we picked them. I told Giraffe to bring any that were visibly orange and so she did. She brought in all of them but one! I am not even kidding! lol

Giraffe loves taking pictures as much as I do, so you'll notice her hands in many of them. This wee carrot was one she deemed her favorite! :) 

Per usual for the last month or so, it was raining that day. That did not bother Giraffe, though. She'd been waiting weeks for this moment and a light drizzle was not going to get in her way! :) I should have put on a coat and hood myself, but I was a bit lost in the moment. Veggies for everyone! :)

You cannot tell how deep this bucket is from the picture, but the carrot greens were easily a foot long. I think this is why what we found at the end of them was so shocking...

This, to be exact. My first-time-planting-carrots skills missed the mark! I seeded them into those pods that you get from the garden store in the little indoor greenhouse kit for starting your seeds. I sprinkled several into each pod, never doubting that the growing carrots would break through the mesh as they grew.

I think it is pretty clear that they did not break through the mesh. lol What they did do, however, is grow tangled around one another within the pod!

Instead of four to six inch carrots, we got a mangled mess of alternately very fat or very thin baby carrots. lol We had a good laugh over that! I seeded the bale again the same day - no pods in sight. Perhaps those will grow nice and deep! :)

For size comparison, I took another picture. This carrot was a bit longer than others but had a shorter set of greens. Go figure! 

They did taste absolutely fabulous, by the way. Crisp and sweet, they were an absolutely perfect snack! :)

This baby girl makes me sooo happy! I can barely even tell you! She is one of two that we hand pollinated when we FINALLY caught them flowering! You can see that she's a wee little bit thicker/rounder in the middle than previous females have been. I'm hoping and praying that this is a good sign. Grow baby, grow!!! :)

This little lady (the same one pictured farther up this same blog post) also looks like the pollination has taken! She's a little fatty, isn't she? 

We have collectively pinned our hopes and dreams for hand-grown watermelon on these two pittle gals. :) Lord willing they will continue to lengthen and fatten up so that we might have sweet, sweet watermelon this summer! 

This picture was taken this morning, so we are caught up on our gardening adventures for now. Have I mentioned that we are freak-out excited?!?!?!?! hahaha

Straw Bale Garden Update/June 2015

June 5th through June 30th

I know that this is a late update, but hopefully it will also be a short update. Maybe that will help make up for it? :) 

By the time June 10th rolled around, our seedlings had firmly taken hold in the straw bales. 

We would go out into the garden every morning we possibly could. Giraffe liked to pick the long, slender, slippery mushrooms that came up in the night. 

You might think of fungus as a bad sign, but in reality it is a sign that the straw bales are well conditioned and ready to grow. Yay! :) 

You can see the joy she takes in talking to and tending the little plants. :) Here she is communing with the tomatoes. 

On the left side of this straw bale are our heirloom Abe Lincoln tomatoes. Hopefully, they will be large and juicy when they are fully grown. 

On the right side are the tomatoes we picked up at the grocery store and liked so much we seeded and planted. 

A week later on the 17th we had finally set up poles and started to run wire between them to support our growing plants. Admittedly we should have done this much sooner in the process. Next year it will be done immediately so the plants know where to grow.

The only plants outside of the wire/pole framework are the carrots. They do not need the support, so we did not provide it. 

 June 20th saw even more wires and more plant growth. It was also in the middle of a particularly rainy patch. In fact, the last half of June was so rainy that the month began to climb the record list. I believe it ended up being the 7th rainiest month in our state history. The garden benefitted greatly, as you can tell. We had the soaker hose out where it needed to be, but truthfully did not really end up needing to use it. :)

Around this time, Giraffe began to notice wee strawberries growing in the planter. :) This is always one of her favorite times of the year. She squeaks and squeals over each new berry, exclaiming about how pretty and precious they are. Funny... I think the same things about her! :)

The cucumber plants began to flower. These are staminate male flowers. They show up before the carpellate females. This is so their pollen attracts bees (etc). 

By the time the females arrive, the cucumber plants are on the daily route of several pollinators - increasing the success rate of pollination and fruit production.

This year we have only noticed a single honeybee in our yard. Last year we had just four. This year only one, and he nearly drowned in the pool. Thankfully we saved him in time. We have plenty of wasps, but they honey bees are disappearing. Why do I mention it? 

This is tragic proof of the mass die-off that has been taking place.

Honey bees are vital to the pollination and success of plant growth, from flowers to home gardens like ours, to massive fields of America's life-sustaining crops. Companies like Monsanto are messing with the foods you consume every day. Their GMO's and pesticides are highly suspected to be behind the mass die-off that the honey bee colonies are facing. 

Look it up, friends. This is a real problem. It is not just dangerous to honeybees, it is dangerous to us. Food brought to you by the same companies who created Agent Orange. Look it up. Learn, research, and then find out what you can do to help stop this tragedy. If Obi Wan (hubs) and the HOA were okay with it, Giraffe and I would start bee keeping tomorrow.

June 20th saw the flowering and growth of our green beans, as well. I planted too many of these too close together. Oddly enough, they don't seem to mind the proximity of their neighbors and are doing very well. 

June 22nd was the last time I took photos for the month. I briefly lost my camera after that, thanks to Koala. :) I have only this final photo to share.

Tomato flowers, like other plants, contain pollen. Other plants carry their pollen on the outside of stamen growing one each inside of male flowers. Tomatoes have anthers instead of stamen: hollow tubes which have pollen inside. These anthers require vibration in order to release the pollen, which then sticks to the stigma. From there, the pollen grains grow tubes to the seeds and fertilize them. It is a fascinating process! 

Usually, the vibration of bees is enough to accomplish this. Even the soft brush of the wind can accomplish this (although not to great effect). The more seeds that are fertilized, the more fleshy the fruit. Humans have taken to providing vibration in a variety of ways to ensure good fruit production. One might 'spank' the tomatoes (as you can see Giraffe doing here) to provide vibration in the stems. You could also hold a vibrating toothbrush against the stems, or tape a pencil lightly against them. Mind you, this is never done hard enough to damage any part of the plant at any time. 

There you have it! :) We have caught up on updating the 2015 straw bale garden effort for the month of June! :)

Straw Bale Garden 2015

Brace yourselves... 

this is going to be a long one! :)

We decided to do a straw bale garden again this year. :) 

By the end of last season, we were unimpressed with the amount of bugs in our yard. I am not even kidding, we would step out the back door and get bit 20+ times. Not cool! If I were able to put the straw bales farther back, it probably would not have been so bad. This year we are going to try to step up our use of diatomaceous earth. Also, we did not plant any pumpkins. Hopefully, that means our yard won't be taken over by huge, prickly, bug-enticing leaves! haha

So, where to begin! :) We started out in early May by placing three bales in the back yard. It would be another week before we got the fourth bale, so it is not yet pictured.

We took a water hose which was already leaky and draped it over the bales with holes in it. Not a real soaker hose, but close enough. Thus began the 10-14 day process of watering and fertilizing the bales, otherwise known as conditioning.

Around this time, we also laid in our seeds. This year we used six different kinds of seeds. We chose green beans, watermelon, cucumber, carrots, and two kinds of tomatoes. The first came from a packet of seeds we picked up at the store. The rest are seeds we dried out from tomatoes we purchased and really enjoyed eating. We already have strawberries growing in the planter, so did not need to seed those.

 The seedlings grew quickly and received a lot of personal attention from both Giraffe and Koala. :) We checked on them excitedly every day, taking great delight in their growth! :) :) 

Also during this time we added the fourth bale of straw to the yard. This extended the time we conditioned the straw bales from two weeks to three. 

I would have loved to have a lot more bales, but that was not in the cards for us this year. The bale garden of my dreams is in a big u-shape facing my back patio, with two additional rows between. There would be bales along both sides of the yard, with just enough space left for the kids to swing and play. One day, perhaps... :)

Giraffe helped me lay in the garden one sunny May afternoon. This is what the bales looked like. Our sweet little newborn plants! :) :) 


These are the carrots. At the time, they were just a stack of single-stalk sprouts. Everything was at that point, really. :)






These are the two different types of tomatoes. I put more plants in this year than last because hubs is supposed to put up rebar and wire for me. The wire will provide a much more sturdy support for the tomato plants than the tomato cages of last year. 

Last year most of my bales had two kinds of plants each. This year only one bale has that distinction.
On the left, we have green beans. Those were our tallest seedlings, you can tell! :) On the right, we have cucumber. I wasn't sure which of the seedlings would be the strongest, so I just put all four of them in there. . 

The leftmost straw bale in my yard is the one my children are most eager to grow. It holds the watermelon plants! We have high hopes for these, given that our plans did not pan out last year. The fruit they bear is supposed to be long, fat, and really sweet. I so hope my littles are able to have a lot of big, delicious slices of watermelon this year! :) 

That catches us up to May 19th!
Here are the plants as of this morning.

The carrots have sprung out of their respective hills with gusto. :) There are four little mounds in all that look like this! The other three are smaller, which makes this my favorite set of carrots so far! I cannot wait until we can pick them. :)

These are the cucumber plants. You can see they have gone from two leaves to full-on plant starts! :) I hope and pray that they last longer than last year's cukes. Those put out some huge cucumbers but were choked out by the pumpkin plant. 

 The green beans are looking very good. You can see that some happy insect has taken a liking to one leaf. I will be digging the diatomaceous earth out of my garage this afternoon. Mushrooms have sprouted overnight from the fresh dirt. We'll be picking those out as we go, as well. 

These are the watermelon plants as of this morning. The one in the center did not make it but seems to have a random friend growing now. lol They may not look very large. Compared to the initial two leaves, though, they really are growing! :) I am very pleased!!

Last, we have the strawberry plants. No berries so far, but we remain watchful. :) 

I cannot believe it is June already! 2015 drug badly when the cold weather stuck around too long. Now it is flying by. I am hopeful for all good things. :)

Mama, I Wish You

Several recent birth traumas and injuries have caused my heart to be most heavy, most tender today. There is so much I wish for mothers in this crazy, unfair world of ours. 

Mama, I Wish You...

Mama, I see the tears trailing down your cheeks. 

I hear your sobs though I'm not nearby. 

Your heart cries out in pain without words,

and our hearts echo back in reply. 

I wish... I wish...

Mama, I wish you the arms of Jesus

wrapped tightly around your heart.
I wish His arms around your baby

while you two are far apart. 

I wish you had calm instead of terror;

 the fear of losing your precious baby boy.

I wish this nightmare you're living

could be somehow replaced with joy.

I wish that I could undo the moments

that lead to this frightening birth.

I wish yesterday had been the best of your life, 

instead of the scariest, and worst. 

Oh mama, how I wish I could express to you

the deepest sympathies of my heart. 

I wish that I could let you know that you are not alone

as you lay feeling empty, forgotten in the dark. 

Too many mamas have gone before you.

Too many of us know well this blackened road. 

You feel alone though surrounded with people

all wishing they could bear for you this load.

I wish you a healthier baby this minute, 

the next hour, day, and week. 

I wish you safe recovery to meet him in person, 

and plant mother's love kisses on his cheek. 

I wish health to his heart, mind, and body, 

and for his seizures to altogether cease.

I beg God for healing, in His Holy name

in my heart and on my knees. 

I wish you a mountain of mercies, 

new from the Lord each minute of every day.

I wish you His guidance, His goodness

every single step of the way. 

Lord, touch this mama and all others like her. 

Let your healing hand not from them roam.

Bring her and baby your healing, Oh God,

let these babies and mommies go home.

Thoughts on my Religion

Today my aunt shared a link to a blog about the IFB. For those of you who do not recognize the acronym, it means independent, fundamental Baptist. It is a denomination built on the premise that we are independent churches that (oddly enough) are NOT a combined denomination. IFB is a way to recognize the generic shared doctrine of churches which remain independent of larger group organization.  Now, his thoughts and my thoughts to follow NEED to be taken with the understanding that not all Christians and not all churches (IFB or otherwise) are this way. However, it is a pattern that has emerged over time and which must be changed. Indeed, many people are trying so hard to change it even now.

Anyway, here is the article she shared:
http://reversediscipleship.blogspot.com/2014/03/what-happened-to-us.html

My reaction to this article is strong. This man addresses so much of what my generation has been expressing. I know that a lot of us (adults in our thirties) are breaking away from the strict, formidable stereotype of our predecessors. In the comments section, the author addressed pastors. He said,

"May I take a moment and thank all the excellent Pastors who have stayed independent in their practice and fundamental in their beliefs while continuing to love and encourage their people to grow with Christ. This article is in no way meant to discourage those good men."

My pastor is one such man. Gracious, loving, kind, humble (there is one trait we miss a lot in the IFB)... he is a wonderful guy and a true example of what a shepherd should be.

I was born and raised an IFB preacher's kid. I married a man who became an evangelist, and for now is a church member who preaches where he can. I have worn the shackles of man-created, man-glorifying standards my entire life. I wore them joyfully, and did not perceive them as shackles. I knew what "real Christians" look like, and I looked like all of them. 

My spouse and I experienced horrific spiritual abuse ten years ago. It took five years after that for the glass bubble I was living in to shatter, and the mud to be scraped from my eyes. In my deepest time of depression and despair, it was people I were taught were the 'wrong kind of Christians' who saw and tended my brokenness and my needs. I am IFB, my husband intends to stay IFB, but we are no longer the same. We are changed, and we attend a church of changed people serving with a changed pastor.

In years past, I have seen the pattern repeating all around me in our IFB world. The broken are condemned for breaking, and kicked while they are down. I have watched dear friends being battered until they flee - yes, flee - their churches for the abuse they were under during their time of need. They weren't even sinning! They were hurting, and in turn for their pain were flogged and mistreated, heartlessly turned on and left in a heap. I have supported these friends with every fiber of my being because I know what that abuse feels like.

Where Christ would draw us in, we would keep one another at arm's length for fear of being dragged down. We are so convinced of the rightness of our works, that, while we believe they do not save us, we believe them to be evidence of that salvation. Fruits of the spirit, we call these standards we cling to. We work really hard and in many cases believe that we are the same at home as we are in church, because really do try SO hard to be pious. Many, many of us are not "Sunday only" Christians. 

The problem is that what we are, to our shock, judgmental on one side and secretive on the other. We wear a mask of 'strength'. We hide our imperfections so that we can be a good testimony to other people, completely missing the point that the unchanging theme through the Bible is of God using imperfect people! God uses our infirmities for His glory, yet we are so wrapped up in standards... and in enforcing them... that we do not reveal the cracks! Worse yet, we call this strength! Where God says to "Bear ye one another's burdens", we spend our days 'sucking it up'. We call those who do air their pains and concerns 'dramatic', or figure they are seeking attention. We take pride in our independence and self sustaining. 

There is life in the blood, there is power in the blood, and yet we are afraid to expose the wounds! :'(

The severe and heartless condemnation of one another is more Pharisee than child of God. It has taken time, study, repentance and something else that I did not know how to accomplish... acceptance of God's grace... for me to reach this place where I *hope* I am more like the living example of Christ. I am still changing. Every day, every week, every month, every year I am changing and I hope, growing in Christ. 

It is easy to get hung up on the wrathful and vengeful God. After all, we do not preach a loving God; we preach an Almighty God. This God we preach handles His. He is not just love and cupcakes and rainbows. God the Father has shown wrath to the world, it is true! We preach heartily about His wrath, His anger, His chastisement of His children, but we ignore the living example of humanity that He gave us. Jesus Christ! 

"For God so love the world that He sent his Son"

Yes! Yes, He did! God's son was not just sent do die, though! I believe wholeheartedly that He was sent as an example of what humanity - Christian humanity - aught to look like! He overthrew the tables in the temple ONCE!!! ONCE!! Why? Because His house was being used improperly! I know Christians who justify all kinds of bad behavior on the premise that God got angry. They drag out His temple-tossing like the be-all, end-all answer to anyone who would dare to question their own anger. Righteous anger, we call it. 

The problem is that most of the time Jesus Christ was not to be found in the temples with the high and mighty self-serving Pharisees. He was found in the thick of it with people! God was out in the world with the average person. More than that, He was with people that 'better' society rejected reaching, drawing, teaching, exhorting, encouraging, welcoming... you find Christ the man with his arms out all through the NT! We in the IFB have lost the draw! We don't yearn for the souls zealously. We do not put our time and effort into people we deem 'unworthy'. "Such were some of ye!", but we forget! 

I weep with joy, I tremble all over when I think of the earthly example of God the man! We preach Christ like the wrath of God the father is all there is to Him. We talk about grace, but not in a very real way. We talk about grace in the past tense! God showed us grace... why yes! Yes He did! We don't talk so much about the fact that He is STILL merciful and STILL shows grace. Why not? We are afraid that people will take advantage of His grace and live an unchanged life. This death grip on the need for lifestyle changes can easily lead us to withhold grace from one another. If a brother or sister has different standards than us, we see this as an example (or fruit) of them backsliding. 

We are missing out on SO much when we reject the example of Christ Himself for the hard core following of the OT laws! He LOVES us! God LOVES us, but we are afraid to say so for fear of being seen as a too-liberal Christian. I will say again that not every person is like this. In fact, I know more good churches than bad. The stirring and reviving of hearts IS happening. The world doesn't know it, and so they judge us for our predecessors. That is okay, though. They do not know better. We are changing, and in time it will be evident.    

Lord, help us! Help us as our generation seeks you! Help us to be lead, challenged, and discipled by older generations. Help them not to be upset and feel threatened by our search for Christ - for the true Christ! Open our hearts to your truth! Open our arms to the lost, and oh, oh Lord, open our arms to each other! :') Help us to bear one another's burdens, not BE one another's burdens.