Straw Bale Garden 2018 Pics

I am going to add these and run through them as quickly as possible. :) These  pictures show the progression of our plants for this year's garden. 

May 23rd was one year from the day my dad passed away in 2017. I so terribly wanted some good to come from that horrible date. It was important for me to focus on life and not death. I think this would be important to my dad, too. He wanted us all to know that the day he passed would be the best day of his life... the day when he got to meet the Lord he has been loving and talking about for such a long, long time. I didn't get to it until that night before bed, but we seeded plants into fifty little pods.

Three days later, on the 26th, we got a phone call telling us that dad's ashes were ready for pickup. He had donated his body to science the day he passed. We were told to expect this phone call at the end of May or perhaps early in June. Needless to say, receiving this call on the 26th of March was quite a shock! I do not have a picture, but that same day our very first plants sprouted! We find that comforting.

I moved the sprouts as quickly as I could (seen above and to the left) into trays. I was hopeful not to have to thin out so many plants this year. I wanted everything to have its very best chance to grow. :) It was a real joy watching them stretch upwards toward the grow light. <3

Grow, they did! In what seemed like no time at all, the sprouts became seedlings. Now we had true plant starts. We also added a second grow light to our home. We had gone from packets of seeds to nearly 200 plants! We felt so blessed by this wealth of little garden starts. <3 

The plants continued to grow and thrive throughout the month of April. May rolled around and I was in full swing, moving plants out of trays and into 3" and 4" cups. A week ago, we moved some of those outside to harden off. We are tremendously pleased with these little guys! :) 

In the week since, I began to plant some of our little guys, as well. I have two buckets that are presently growing varieties lettuce. I set out some tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli, spaghetti squash, butternut squash, zucchini, two types of cucumber, some of the 18 varieties of tomatoes we are growing, cantaloupe, and I forget what all else. They are all very small yet, but the garden as truly begun! 

Because he knows and loves me so well, my husband gave me the gift of my favorite kind of potting soil as well as 8 beautiful new bales of straw to add to the fourteen we already have. I don't know what everyone else gets for Mother's Day, but I call that true love! <3 :) You can tell the new straw compared to the darker, already conditioned bales. Aren't they lovely?

Hubs also took the time this past weekend to cut down the pine tree which has grown to take up so much space in our yard. You can see where some of it was, by the absence of grass at the left of the bales. My yard now looks larger, and I have more space for gardening! What a win that is! I love this man so very much! <3 <3 <3 Our garden has gotten bigger every year. Yay! I cannot wait to see these overrun with plants!