Straw Bale Garden Update July 2020

Are you ready for pictures? :) Here comes the July update on our straw bale garden! :) As you can see, the difference since our last update is pretty clear. :) Plants which were just sprouts or (in some cases) seeds are growing merrily up trellises and over the arches. To say that we are excited would be an understatement. We are completely enthralled!

Shelly can be found in the garden every single day, checking on cantaloupe. :) They grew more slowly than the squash, perhaps, but once they got going, look out! There are presently 13 wee cantaloupes growing on the inside left of this arch! You can see her carefully counting each one, sizing them up, and looking to see how many more might show up soon. 

This same arch also boasts cucumbers, spaghetti squash, and even a random yellow pear tomato plant that my little Pie planted. We started yellow pear seeds after realizing that some of our other varieties may fail. As always, when she helps put in seeds, my youngest always ends up surprising us with plants growing in the 'wrong' places. haha That statement is only half true, however. We like to think that any place a plant comes up happens to be the 'right' place. ;) ;) ;)

Another surprise we encountered in the garden this year came in the form of our zucchini. I was having trouble getting my Black Beauty plant to survive. Desperate to have zucchini to share with "the neighbors in the grey house" (who really, REALLY love the stuff) after two bad years in a row, I had Hubs pick up some zucchini plants at the store. Wouldn't you know, these warty looking yellow guys showed up! haha Those are apparently called "yellow crookneck squash". They are a type of vegetable that is something of zucchini or summer squash. I hear that they are tasty. We shall see! :) 

As you can also see in the picture above, we have another summer squash. This one was intentional. Ha! This is our spaghetti squash. We have three really big guys. I am sorry the picture to the right is so dark. I had Shelly put her hands on each end to try to get an idea of how big it is. They are every bit the size a spaghetti squash should be, and have only to ripen. :) These will keep well through the fall, too. :) The squash plants have fallen victim to vine borer bugs. Boo! However, we knew to plan for this. I have retained some seeds. We will be laying in a second crop. They will have plenty of time to grow and 'bear fruit' by season's end. 

The green peppers are both flowering and producing. The peppers we planted in the bales came from the store. They are only about half the size of the plants that came from my very own seeds. :) Those plants are the ones I referred to a month ago in the last update. We had given up on their seeds germinating and dumped the dirt into a planter. Since then, they've grown quite tall! They are just now bringing forth little peppers. As to the smaller plants in the bale, all in a row, every plant there has at least one pepper. :)

Here is a peek at my admittedly small potato plant. Lacking in size though it may be, it still brings me great joy! Again I cite the difficulty I had even finding seed potatoes. The one time I thought I found Yukon Gold seed potatoes and made my purchase, instead of a 'shipped' notification from the vendor, I received a notice of order cancellation and refund. *That* is how hard it was! Thank God one of my store-bought potatoes (for eating) sprouted! :) We cannot wait to see how well it yields later in the year. 

To the left is a picture of a small, happy little watermelon. :) I had seeds for 'Sugar Baby' and 'icebox', so we planted both. It was only recently that I learned that the Sugar Baby variety of watermelon is considered an 'icebox' watermelon because it can fit into the refrigerator. haha So much for having two varieties! Ah, well. We tried! 

You can see that this little guy is tucked into a sling. I saw videos online about using pantyhose or tee-shirts to support heavy produce growing vertically. I thought, "I can do the exact same thing using cotton yarn and crochet!" So I did. Or rather, *we* did! Both Pie and Shelly have been crocheting slings with me! :)

In this next picture we have a cucumber. :) I think I will end on this photo today, actually. There are more things to show, but these updates get so very long! haha I probably should break them into parts more often. These cucumbers are growing very well. We have some growing up the right side of either arch. While not my favorite cukes of all time, I am pleased with the output. :) 

So, anyhow, there we are for today's update. I will show up again later on and we will talk tomatoes. ;) In the meantime, happy gardening to all! Be blessed. <3

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: and We're Off!

After thirteen days of conditioning our straw bales, our little plant starts were starting to wilt and just had to go in. Hubs worked late, and I didn't want to leave him out of this fun and family-friendly project so I waited for him to get home from work. 

He very kindly stopped by a garden center and checked to see if they had a few other plants that I wanted, and they did! Yay! By the time he got back with the plants, potting and garden soil, it was getting dark outside. Still, it was much cooler than earlier in the day. That was a nice perk! :)

We began by making holes into the straw bale itself. This actually gave us a really good idea of the readiness of each bale, as some spots were easy to dig out, and other spots were hard. Hubs used the spade/planter and I used a weeder, having found it fairly easy to stab down through the composting straw. 

The first plant we put in was my cherry tomato, which had begun suffering, as you can see here. We placed it carefully into the hole along with some good quality potting soil. We also put the tomato cage around it before we added more soil to it. This is because winds can really gust in our back yard and I hope to have it pushed in deeply enough that it won't move. 

While I was working on the cherry tomato, hubs began digging out a spot for the beefsteak heirloom tomato he'd just brought home. 

In the past we have grown cherry tomatoes and hybrid tomatoes in a planter on our balcony. (We didn't have a yard at the time.) I've always hoped for larger tomatoes, and am really, really hoping this is that year!

After planting them with good potting soil and mounding the dirt tightly around them, we added regular garden soil on top. It was nice and warm, and I couldn't help but feel we were putting our babies cozy to bed for the night. lol I would have gone with all potting soil, but I ran out. 

You can see here that there is a color difference, and that the plants really did look pretty droopy. 

The next morning I was eager to take a picture. This is what the bale garden looks like right now. Next year we will get more complicated and use rebar steaked into the ground and wires across the whole, but for this year we used tomato cages. I am going to have to use extra wire on them as the plants that vine grow out more. 

My brother-in-law gave us some tomato plants right around the time we began to condition the bales, so they had spent about 12 days out in their individual potting pods. Thankfully they were still green, so we placed them in by two's. You can see that I hadn't yet picked up the last of the tomato cages. We have since. :)

Here again are my beefsteak (left) and cherry (right) tomato plants. I cannot tell you how I am babying these two! I have such high hopes! 


I will be honest though, on this first morning after planting I was worried sick about my little garden and hoping fervently that we see progress and growth instead of slow death. 

Here we have cucumbers (left) and pumpkin (right). The cucumber is in a tomato cage that I will be adding/using additional wire where I need to as it grows to help it vine out. 

I am still a bit unsure of the pumpkin, but I am eager to learn what I can do to help this little guy out as well. :)

A week before planting I had picked up a little celery start. I was SO excited to have my own celery plant!

After reading about them online and what all it takes to grow them well, I became discouraged. There are a million things that can go wrong. Still, I had paid for the little fellow, so we dug a quick hole by the house and planted him anyway. 



The idea is to let nature take it's course. Still, I did want to give him his best shot. I knew that celery likes shade and water, so we put him up close to the house where the only shade in the yard can be found. We also put a lot of pellet fertilizer at the bottom of the hole, and gave him plenty of potting soil around the roots and base before covering over with the original yard dirt. 

This isn't a great picture, but you can see the little celery stalks already looking so cute!

You can also tell that my yard needs mowed and trimmed.... but that is another story. Ugh. lol One little stalk is dying because Giraffe forgot that the celery is there and smashed it with the hose the very next day. 

Fast forward just four days, and we are seeing which plants will make it and which may not.

Admittedly I should have watered the plants before taking their pictures, but here they are anyway. (This was two days ago already. Time has gotten away from me!)

My droopy little cherry tomato is getting thicker and fuller! Best of all, there are eight little tomatoes showing up at the top of the plant!

Hubs, Giraffe, and myself are beyond excited! Yesterday while we were outside we snapped off the dead branch (why keep it around?), and continued with our watering and fertilizing rituals.

Even Koala baby is excited! She keeps toddling up to the bales (which come about to her armpits) and pointing at them with many exclamations of "Oooooh!" and "Fow-er!" (flower)

The beefsteak tomato has made the most progress, as you can see here. It has bushed out to around twice it's width overall, and has even gained some height. Seriously, I couldn't be happier!!

Keep your fingers crossed, people! We may just end up with some big tomatoes yet! :)

This pumpkin plant is one reason I said that I should have watered the plants before taking the pictures. They are much more perky after a good watering. ;) 


Still, I think you can tell that we are already seeing growth here, as well! 
Yeah!!

This cucumber could also probably go either way, but the fact is that the little guy is growing! Slow growth, maybe, but it is definitely there!


I hope to get some liquid fish-based fertilizer to put on these sometime over the weekend. I hear it really helps!

These are our broccoli plants. Two of them are presently thriving, and two of them were so brown (the right two) that we just plucked them out yesterday. 

I honestly think that this is probably one of the spots in the straw that didn't "feel" ready for planting. We'll keep feeding/fertilizing, and then I hope to put in a watermelon plant. 

I have to mention a couple more things before I sign off for today. When we took the dirt off of the bales to condition them, I had already seeded in the beefsteak. They hadn't sprouted though, so I just threw the dirt in (and on top of) the existing strawberry plants in the planter. 

Big surprise, we came home Monday night to these babies! lol I wanted beefsteak tomatoes, and now I have too many starts to use!  

Another cast-off plant from the first misguided attempt at bale gardening was a pea plant; four, actually.

This little guy survived so we set the tray aside and continued to use plant food. What do you know, the dying original vine sprouted a new one! That new one is growing!!! It was even taller yesterday. We're going to have to figure out what to do for this little guy. lol 


So, there you have it. Our straw bale gardening adventure is not just started, we are officially off the ground! Things are planted and growing, with just a few casualties so far. :) Every day we water the plants, and at least every other day we try to soak them with plant food or add fertilizer. Today is the 'every other' day, so they'll be getting another feeding. If everything goes right we will have strawberries, watermelon (yet to be planted), pumpkin, broccoli, cucumbers, sugar snap peas, and a wealth of tomatoes this summer! :) Should that really happen, next year the bale garden will be larger and more goodies will be planted. Let's hear it for urban gardening! haha