Straw Bale Garden Update June 8th, 2024

Our garden this year is being grown up the sides of an arch tunnel extending from my back patio out toward the treeline. We have five bales each along the inside of the arch, four on the outer left side, and two on the outer right. There is also a garden container against the house full of wee Little Birdy Yellow Canary tomato plants and some fennel, a hill where Little Pie is growing pumpkins (Jack-O'-Lanters), and  small buckets that are growing Yukon Gold (new) potatoes. I say 'new' because we tend to harvest them little and use them in soups. We have the usual chives and strawberries, as well. 

 

Little Giraffe's Jack O' Lanterns

Hubs went through the garden today with me and we adjusted the names of tomato plants so I can *finally* make my list for the year. We have been updating it all along since it was planted last month. Unfortunately, critters (I believe raccoons that my neighbor is currently FEEDING, of all things) have been decimating plant after plant. We have already replaced something like ten plants and I still have some more naked spots of which I was unaware. :( I should have checked them personally this morning.

So, instead of being the conclusive list for the season, I present to you what we are growing right this minute: 

Outside Left Bales 

1) White Wonder, Jasper, Tatume Squash 

2) Mint Julep, Dr. Carolyn, Weaver's Black Brandywine 

3) Queen of the Night, Pink Brandywine, Sun Gold 

4) Amethyst, Golden Fang, Royal Golden Watermelon, My's Mystery (so named any time we've lost a label or it has faded in the sun) 

Inside Left Bales 

1) Wapsipinicon Peach, Royal Golden Melon, Jasper 

2)Fuzzy Blue Balls, Wild Boar Pork Chop, My's Mystery 

3) Sun Peach, Moonbeam, Chocolate Cherry 

4)Sun Dipper, Pink Girl, White Beauty 

5)My's Mystery, Pink Siberian Tiger, *empty*

Inside Right Bales

1) Lemon Squash, Phil's Two, Yellow Brandywine

2) Goat's Bag, Golden Fang, Banana Leg

3) Beefmaster, Beefsteak *or* Mark Twain (lol), Striped German 

4) Dino Eggs (entire bale)

5) Brandywine Pink, Hillbilly Potato Leaf, Brandywine Cherry

Outside Right Bales

1) Freckled Child, Dino Egg, Watermelon

2) Alice's Dream, Dirty Little Chicken, Chocolate Cherry

If you're counting, that is thirty-six distinct varieties of tomatoes. That is down by fourteen from our record-breaking year of fifty varieties last year, but it *is* past the thirty mark I kept trying to hit since 2017. I had fallen short of that by two or three for several years in a row, so I'm chuffed to have hit thirty for the second time. 

That is if the little rat-coons don't keep decimating my plants one by one...

Straw Bale Garden Update - June 2023

 

A panoramic view from the patio

Here we are on the final day of June, and I'm finally coming in with a garden update. :) To the right, you can see most of the garden, although there are five more bales to the left of the side (left) arch that continue all the way back up to the very edge of our house. The two nearest the house are loaded down with cucumber plants that are finally starting to climb on the fence behind their bales. There are also two more bales laden down with Scarlet Runner beans and random tomato plants that we ran out of places to tuck in elsewhere. The final bale has herbs and micro tomato plants. 

Pansies and Tomatoes

I also still have a tray of tomato starts that I can't bear to sell and can't find room to plant. What is a person to do? Why, buy extra dirt and fill more pots, of course! Will they need larger containers? Yes. Do I have them? No. Am I going to try to grow them in smaller containers anyway? You betcha. That is, unless I am able to find (or get creative and make) other accommodations for them. 

You can see that I have also tucked tomatoes in with my pansies. I get that this wasn't a great idea, but again, I didn't want to waste my small tomato plants. I have two of the Little Birdy series growing, that I know of. I don't believe that I had any Rosey Finch seeds left from last year. 

Galdiolus

Meanwhile, flowers are growing and blooming all over the yard. I have a ton of Cannas that are putting out their leaves in such a lovely fashion. I bought red Canna bulbs from someone in town this spring. I wanted green plants because that is the kind of Canna my dad gave to me as a gift years ago. Unfortunately, those bulbs never came back up the following year. When I bought these red Cannas, it was as close as I could get to the green. Imagine my utter delight when one set of bulbs put out green shoots! Now we refer to that as the "Papa Canna". It is a delight to find new ways to remember him out in the garden, and in the world around us. 

Okay, so let's get right down to it, shall we? I have a (hastily written) messy list of the tomatoes that are sitting out in my garden right now. I've always wanted to hit a solid 30 (or more) varieties. So far, the closest I've come is 27. Let's get this thing typed out and counted!

2023 Tomato Variety List

1. Climbing Triple Crop  

2. Pink Bumblebee

3. Sunchocula
4. Tumbling Tom
5. Sunpeach
6. Dr. Carolyn
7. Juliet
8. Spoon (I ended up with several plants, grown from seed and also purchased)
9. Banana Leg
10. Wild Boar
11. Mint Julip
12. Chocolate Pear
13. Pink Princess
14. Bumblebee Mix (so this could be sunrise, pink, or purple)
15. Yellow Bell
16. Pink Girl
17. Striped German
18. El Dorado
19. Zapotec
20. Dr. Whyche's
21. Midnight Snack
22. White Beauty
23. Mortgage Lifter Yellow
24. Tropical Sunset
25. Goliath Sunny
26. Mark Twain
27. Brandywine Yellow
28. Brandywine Suddoth
29. Brandywine Black
30. Brandywine Pink
31. Brandywine Cherry
32. Purple Boy
33. Beefmaster
34. Queen of the Night
35. Marglobe
36. Martino's Roma
37. Chef's Choice Pink
38. Watermelon Beefsteak
39. Kellogg's Breakfast
40. Yellow Beefsteak
41. Golden Fang
42. Horizon
43. Indigo Pear Drops
44. Nebraska Wedding
45. San Marzano
46. Rio Grande
47. Stump of the World
48. Little Birdy Yellow Canary
49. Little Birdy Red Robin
50. Chocolate Pear

Oh. My. Goodness!! I have more than met my goal! I have exceeded it - by a lot! EEEEEEKKK!!! Excuse my utter joy, here. I cannot believe this! Hallelujah! I panic-bought a TON of plants this year, after mine struggled so hard to make it. Then I also panic-planted another round of seeds from plants I saved from past years. Girl, WE DID IT!! HAHAHA I couldn't be happier to know that I have not just hit thirty, but exceeded it! This is, indeed, my biggest garden year EVER!! WAHOO!!! TOMATOES, BABY!!!

Oh, my stars! I am one happy gardener! In addition to the many tomatoes, we have many other things growing. Other Veggies (etc): Jack-O-Lantern pumpkins, Yellow Crookneck squash, Delicata squash, Spaghetti Squash, maybe Black Beauty zucchini, Marketmore cucumber, Tendergreen cucumbers, Lemon cucumbers, Scarlet Runner beans, Ground Cherries, Radishes, California Wonder Bell Peppers, Fire and Ice Peppers, Lettuce (mixed), Carrots, Lavender, Hale's Best Jumbo Cantaloupe, Yellow Potatoes (but no sign of growth yet), and Lemon Mint. 

Flowers: Gray Mammoth Sunflowers, American Giant Hybrid Sunflowers, Dwarf Teddy Bear Sunflowers, Calliope, Baby's Breath, Triteleia, Roses (pink, large pink, white tea roses, red, yellow/pink tea roses), Butterfly and Bird wildflower mix, Four O'Clock, Pansies, Cannas, Lilacs (only one reblooming)

Tomato List: Seed Sewing - Straw Bale Garden 2023

 

And we're off! The 2023 garden season is officially underway. I purchased my seeds at the beginning of February but managed to neglect them until mid-March. Oops! We have started tomatoes and peppers, so far. I thought I had seeds for Fire & Ice, Ancho, and Bell peppers. It turns out that I only had Fire & Ice. It is also too early to plant sunflowers, but my little Koala wanted to see what they would do if she started them in a cup, so I gave her four American Giant Hybrid seeds. :) Otherwise, here is the list of tomato seeds that we are going to try this year:

Paste
San Marzano
Golden Fang
Banana Legs

Cherry/Pear
Little Birdy Yellow Canary
Wapsipinicon Peach
Chocolate Pear
Pink Princess Cherry
Blueberries
Black Strawberry
Bumblebee Mix (Sunrise, Pink, Purple)
Litchi
Aunt Molly's Ground Cherry

Tiny
Spoon

Slicing Tomatoes

Pork Chop OG (from the Barred Boar family)
Yellow Brandywine
Dr. Wyche's Yellow
Nebraska Wedding
Kellogg's Breakfast
Orange Accordion
Pink Brandywine
The stump of the World
Chef's Choice Pink
Hillbilly Potato Leaf (this callback to my childhood is an annual 'must' in my garden)
Striped German
Solar Flare
Watermelon Beefsteak
Climbing Triple-L-Crop

Straw Bale Garden Update - June 2022

    Straw Bale Garden (SBG) update time has *finally* arrived. I know that I've run quite behind this year. I haven't posted anything before this besides a list of seeds. Ha! That said, I have had an increasingly busy springtime. My kiddos are rapidly growing up before my eyes. With that comes balancing jobs (three out of four of us and just the one car) and more outings than ever. My Giraffe and Koala are growing faster than any plant on the property. :) Fortunately, I've gotten some really cute pictures of them through the spring, too! ;) ;) ;) 

    I have added some photos to this blog. Please know that they range from a month ago to the present. This past week has been HOT and the garden is suffering for it. 

    Most of the new plants are still seedlings we literally just planted this morning into vacancies left by other plants that did not survive. Even so, we have worked very hard and are praying to eventually have a good bounty to share. Today and tomorrow are in the eighty-degree range and then it is back to the nineties for the foreseeable future. Yikes!

    I twenty-five bales and some pots. Items marked with * are all seedlings that were set out just this morning. Growing all around the yard are: 

TOMATOES

Kellogg's Breakfast 
Purple Bumblebee  *
Sunrise Bumblebee *
Pink Bumblebee  *
Ground Cherries *
Indigo Pear *
Striped German
Large Barred Boar *
Black Strawberry *
Pink Brandywine
Yellow Brandywine 
Blueberries Tomato *
Climbing Trip-L Crop
Spoon Tomatoes *
Nebraska Wedding
Chef's Choice Pink
Garnet
Gardner's Sweetheart
Flamingo Burst
Solar Flare
Dino Eggs
Hillbilly Potato Leaf
Porkchop
Banana Legs
Stump of the World
Dr. Wyche's Yellow
Little Birdy Rosey Finch
Little Birdy Yellow Canary
Siam

We *may* have a Pink Syberian tiger out there, or another of the plants we set out but thought died. Somehow or another, the tags that were with them were blown away or carried off in the night, so there are several of what we like to call "My's Mystery" tomatoes. Once they bear fruit, I will have a better idea of just who they are. I am really hoping against hope that my Orange Accordion tomatoes will show up in there somewhere. I was quite excited to try them this year. I am almost positive that my Spoon tomatoes and my Ground Cherries aren't going to make it. I've never in my life seen such wee little/fragile tomato seedlings. It makes sense that they are tiny. Next year, I will start earlier and pamper the life into them.

VEGGIES

Marketmore Cucumber
Tendergreen Burpless Cucumber
Northeastern Pole Beans
Snap Peas
Poblano Peppers
Green Bell Peppers
California Bell Peppers
Ancho Peppers
Broccoli 
Purple Peacock Broccoli 
Celery (just a baby!)
Buttercrunch Lettuce
Arugula
Strawberry Spinach

We still have to sow carrots, radishes, turnips, and a few other things. Depending on how the weather goes, that may happen this week or not. 

HERBS

Cilantro                   
Sage

Curly Leaf Parsley                   

Italian Parsley                          

Greek Oregano

Chives

Thyme

There are some herbs that I haven't been successful with. These include Chamomile, Lemon Mint, Anise, and Summer Savory. I believe I went wrong by trying to start those in regular seed starting pods, rather than sowing them directly into dirt or a bale under some dirt.

FRUIT

Strawberries

Grapes

Tigger Melon

Yamato Cream Watermelon (these will be yellow inside!)

Crimson Sweet Watermelon

Our Hale's Best Jumbo cantaloupe have all died or been eaten. Like I said, my garden has struggled this year. Today is the third time we've gone out with a fresh batch of seedlings to plug in holes. It has been really frustrating for me, but we keep pushing on. 

FLOWERS

Black Cotton
Chinese Hibiscus
Capt Marguerite
Bolivian Begonia
Garden Petunias - in several colors
Wild Pansy - several colors
Roses - several colors
Morning Glory
Sunflower 

Note: Koala's sunflowers keep getting chopped down by the lawn guy. This may take forever to actually get one all the way up. I also have my lilacs, which are done flowering for the year, and the ever-present Honeysuckle that sneaks in randomly wherever it wishes. 

SQUASH

Waltham Butternut
Black Beauty Zucchini
"Surprise" squash whose tag we lost and I planted nearby the house *facepalm*

My squash was killed and/or died *so* fast. I had Yellow Crookneck, Butternut, Butterscotch, Spaghetti Squash, and Delicata loaded up in my arches. They simply didn't make it. I will try again, but no promises. 

My garden still *looks* rather empty, as many spaces are filled with the tiniest of seedlings. It is also visibly burned from a long week in the sun. Sarting Monday, there is no end of scorching temperatures in the extended forecast. 

I am often praying that every plant will have a good year, regardless. I hate to end on scorched garden pics, but it does bring us right up to the present, so there you have it. <3

Straw Bale Garden Produce, August 2021

The wait is over! The garden is starting to ripen. Here are some of the goodies we have taken in. (This post was meant for August but was delayed due to a loss.)

      

    This purple and pink cutie is a Pink Siberian Tiger tomato. I enjoy the flavor but have found the flesh is so quickly soft and temperamental. I also can't seem to stop these guys from splitting around the top. 

     Featured: Indigo Pear tomatoes (top left - small yellow and purple), Chef's Choice Pink tomatoes, Golden Fang tomatoes (oblong yellow), Wapsipinicon Peach tomatoes (fuzzy small yellow), Pink Bumblebee tomatoes (far right, bottom), Pink Princess Cherry tomato (hiding under the Wapsi), a cucumber, Tigger Melons and I believe an under-ripe Nebraska Wedding.

     I was delighted to grow my own yellow potatoes. :) These are fingerlings, which tasted absolutely heavenly in a pot roast soup. <3  

      These lovely tomatoes are my Orange Orangutans. Aren't they positively a feast for the eyes? Yummmmm. You can see the hint of a Kellogg's Breakfast tomato at the uppermost left corner, right beside a Chef's Choice Pink tomato. These were all quite large and made delicious BLT sandwich tomatoes. :)

    These tomatoes came out a bit "smaller", although not small in any real sense. I had a fair amount of Pink Siberian Tiger, Black Beauty, Nebraska Wedding, Orange Orangutan, Hilliblly Potato Leaf, Kellogg's Breakfast, and this large yellow-orange tomato I grew from seeds I took off of a supermarket tomato a couple of years ago.

    This picture is a closer look at what the Wapsipinicon Peach tomatoes look like. If you have a phone, zoom in. Perhaps you can tell that they are fuzzy like a peach, though distinctly a tomato. I don't particularly care for these, myself. They are my teen's favorite, though. Thus, I will always grow them for her. :)

    Here is a picture of Golden Fang tomatoes beside Roma/Rio Grand for comparison. They did very well, I think. You can see the one is still ripening. I like to bring tomatoes in while they are a bit green to keep them out of the hands of eager squirrels. ;)

This seems to be the only (terrible lol) picture I have of green beans. Hm. Sorry about that. lol

    This is what Tigger Melons look like on the inside. They are meant to be larger than this. It took three years of trying to get these to grow. I was so excited to see what happened that I let the vines go wild. I didn't cull a single melon. In no time, we had over forty! Fun fact: squirrels LOVE them! They are a bit like a cross between a cantaloupe and a honeydew. Their flavor is more earthy and less sweet. My friend loves them, so I will probably grow them again next year. :)

    Butternut squash came up. It was the only one that came up and stuck around. We got exactly one zucchini, two Crookneck (both of which died out of nowhere), no Delicata and initially no Spaghetti Squash. The latter vine came up and put out a small Spag before the squash bugs got to it. My pumpkins, cantaloupe, and cucumbers were all taken down by birds and squirrels while they were still seedlings. I ran to Kroger and saved a dying Boston Pickling Cucumber plant that was on its last legs. We've been making Cucumber Bread ever since.

Our beets grew very quickly but stayed quite small. I will have to look into them more next year and see what I can do to help them out. I gave them good soil, light, and nutrition. Even so, it seems that my neighbors and friends have seen their gardens struggle this year, as well. I am grateful for the few we had. :)

The Parsley (two kinds) has done very well. I am disappointed to say that neither it nor the dill has drawn in swallowtail eggs or caterpillars. Boo! The dill never took off, either. It is still the same single sprig it started out as. Darn if that little guy still didn't manage to flower. lol Chives have continued to boom. I do not love how their bulbs look, but the greens are quite tasty. Cabbage did alright. I picked it before it was full-sized since I am the only one who eats it. It was crisp, delicious, and oh-so fresh! :) I will check on the next head any day now. Carrots wilted and died in the hot summer sun. Radishes were tiny or did the same. Peas came up briefly (Alaska and Sugar Snap) but ultimately fell to wildlife. 

    In all, the month of August was very productive. We also turned my little Giraffe's pool (that she couldn't use with an injured ankle) into a temporary goldfish pond. One of our Bettas, Cobalt, also spent a lot of time out there bringing such a lively pop of blue into the yard. Feeding the fish added another component of tranquility to my gokotta ritual. 

    I adore fall and bear the Christmas spirit pretty much year-round but I have found myself dreading and almost even grieving the close of the gardening season this year. It is the one place in the world where I come closest to much-coveted coveted eutierria. *sigh* I digress. The days are short and best spent intentionally. I must enjoy them all while I have them. <3