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. :)