Straw Bale Garden June 2020 Update

                               

My lovey new arches!

I suppose you can already tell that I could not decide which picture to use, hm? lol The garden is off and growing well for the 2020 season. As you can see, we have made some changes. :) In previous years, we have trellised just the back strip of bales. I have long wished to add a panel up the right side. We finally did! Also, Hubs and Shelly installed two lovely arches! Those, like the trellis sets, are simply made using 't' posts and 16' cattle panels. 

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!

Wee Green Things :)

Here is a quick update on where we are with our little garden so far. I hope you enjoy it! :)

In the picture immediately above and below this one, you will see 18 of my 20 bales for this year. :) They are in two double rows. I did not realize that it is not advised to pair them touching until it was too late. You can also see that my bales are REALLY decomposing! :) The conditioning process, combined with the excessive rain this year, has allowed them to really process very well! 

You can also see in the picture immediately above this one that I used some of last year's old and already well-decomposed straw for an additional planting space. The wheel of the wagon is broken and we don't use it. I thought that repurposing it was better than getting rid of it. :) 

What you cannot see very well in either picture, is that all of the bales along the front are chalk full of tomatoes plants!! I grew all but a couple of these from seeds in my own living room this year! I am SO excited about that!

This is our old planter, purchased back in the mid 2000's. Over the years, it has grown tomatoes and strawberries.

Right now, it is home to several different varieties of spinach. It looks like not many have come up and that I will need to thin out the ones which have come up too close together.

Giraffe sprinkled in the seeds for these herself. :) Both girls have been very active and involved in the gardening this year. It is one of my favorite things to teach them! I believe that a passion for gardening will ensure that both girls has a solid grasp of her own sustainable future. 

This planter is one which we refer to as a "Papa planter". After my dad passed away in March, my mother had to move. They used these planters for tomatoes and other assorted veggies out on the patio where they lived. 

This planter is filled with a variety of lettuce, in different stages of growing. I will come back to create a comprehensive list again later on when I have time. We are excited to try more flavors than before!

This planter - another "Papa Planter" is the happy home of my cabbage this year. 

Later on, there will be several varieties of both green and red. So far, this is only growing red cabbage.

Red cabbage is another variety which I have never grown before. These are already making me crazy with joy, just to look at their little wee sprout selves!

This Papa planter looks very empty at the moment. What you believe you are looking at here is my cauliflower. 

Again, here we have another plant which we have never previously grown! This baby - like most of the babies in my garden right now - was grown with love and tenderness from a few seeds. 

What you *don't* see right now is that the dirt is full of carefully-planted radish seeds. Granna, my mother, gave us the gift of Cherry Belle radish seeds this spring. We planted, loved on, and have already harvested some gorgeous radish from this planter! We are on sewing two!

 While we are on the topic of radishes, here is a close-up peek of two of the beauties we already harvested. 

We originally pulled the biggest one and were beside ourselves with delight! haha It was both fat and long!! Little Koala squeaked and squealed, exclaiming a thousand praises over it! haha

This little guy is a spur-of-the-moment purchase and addition to our garden. I was not going to do celery again this year. (I had done it two years ago to magnificent results!)

Celery was off of my to-do list because I wasn't sure if it would grow in a bale and I do not feel like growing it in the ground, as I did before. 

Saturday morning, hubs took the girls to the farmers market and video-called me along for the journey (I've been sick). I laid eyes on this little guy and simply *had* to give him a home!

For now, he is in a planter until I decide what I want to do with him. I am sure to find him a permanent residence soon enough.

On to the ugly. No, really. I understand that this is not a pretty garden bed. haha You have to understand that we threw what was left of a bale in there and it has continued to decompose. In fact, at the center of this 'mess' is nearly pure dirt!

From left to right you see green basil, purple basil, and a variety of curled-leaf parsley. These herbs are growing well and I expect to get to use them a lot. :)

This tall little fella is another lettuce. This is the start of two plants, both a variety of romaine lettuce. 

We have already had some of these and let me tell you, they taste really good! :) They were a bit weak after coming home from the farmer's market, so I made sure to put them into a planter with plenty of dirt, water, and tlc.

Last year, we had several varieties of lettuce. This year, we are at least doubling that amount. I cannot wait to keep planting through the year so that we can continue to have fresh food on the table!! :) Seriously, we so deeply enjoy a season rich with fresh produce!

If you have children or at least have a taste for Honey Nut Cheerios, you may recognize what is in this little potted planter. 

Giraffe was excited to see that Cheerios cares about honey bees! I was only too happy to send out for the free packet of wildflower seeds they offer. 

We waited a couple of weeks and the seeds showed up in the mail! (Unlike the butterfly seeds from last year, which never showed up even after we made a complaint.)

Giraffe planted these and has been seeing to it that they stay watered. They have rewarded her by growing. We cannot wait to see what they are!

There were too many seeds for one planter, so she put them into two. :)

This planter looks like it may not have room enough to hold all of the wee little wild flowers!

Have you done this before? I wonder how many colors and varieties to expect. I planted a packet of wildflower seeds when I was a child or teen. They bloomed, taking over an entire row of our flower bed. 

I am starting to think that we should have given these gals their own flower bed, as well. Who knows, maybe in the future I will grow flowers in bales. I know that other SBG's do this! :)

Last but not least, we have this little gem. :) I got Giraffe some sort of little growing garden in a jar for her birthday fun. You cannot tell it anymore, but she had a little mushroom trinket and some other trinket in it. There are layers of dirt, sand and rocks. Chia seeds were placed top. She soaked the entire thing and BOOM! 

It is fun but in the week or so since this picture, the grass continues to grow, grow, grow. She clips it every day or two and gives it to her crabs. You cannot see any of the trinkets and the entire bottom is one huge maze of roots. It makes a great chia garden container but you really cannot call it a fairy garden or whatever it was supposed to be. haha

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OKAY, I have a lot of plants growing in bales which I have not mentioned. I *will* definitely get to those later! For now, my babies and I are going to go outside. I will soak the garden AND the kids. haha I am still quite sick but I honestly think the sunshine is helping. :) I hope everyone is having a good week. Happy planting! Happy gardening! 

Straw Bale Garden 2016 - Season Three

There is way too much to share about this year's garden! I should have started blogging earlier, but I was unable to. This is going to be a long one! (Edited to add that formatting is really messing up. It won't let me space, delete or rearrange. This is going to be a hot mess!)

 Let me *try* for the nutshell version. I was sick for the entire beginning of the year, from January through the end of March. Somewhere near the middle of March, I *did* purchase my supplies and lay in some seedlings. Yay! :)

Here you see the sprouts. There were tomatoes (2 kind), cucumber, cantaloupe, cabbage, lettuce, and watermelon. 

 When the seedlings seemed big enough, I moved them to trays made of coconut coir and placed them into the greenhouse that Hubs so lovingly bought me. I had to rely heavily on the kids to keep them watered while I was still recovering. They got a kick out of spraying them daily with a spray bottle.

    We also filled a five gallon aquarium with dirt and sprinkled a packet of carrot seeds into it. Our goal was to get to actually watch the carrots grow before our very eyes!

 Seedlings kept growing, and along with them my hopes of the perfect garden grew. At some point we had eighteen or nineteen different things growing. I kept a religious list... and then Koala lost it. *sigh* 

 It was around then that we did finally bring home the bales. They only need about ten days of conditioning, but with me being so ill and with the weather this year being so temperamental we did not get to condition them for at least a month. In the meantime, they soaked up water and sleet from the sky.

 
Seedlings got larger, so we moved them to still bigger pots, refilling the old pots with herbs. There was basil, mint, cilantro, oregano, spinach, and chives.

It was a real pleasure to watch them grow! 

 The veggies were really taking off. Even the carrots began to show up in the fish tank. We were really excited! I kept hoping the weather would improve so we could get our bales conditioned and move them outside. We did place them on the patio on good days to harden off. 

 When the herbs began to come up, we got even more excited! We were going to plant a garden with SO much variety! I still think they are so pretty. Koala was very involved this year. Giraffe planted half of the seeds, and she the other half. 

 Next we added pumpkin and green pepper to our collection. Green pepper takes a while to germinate, so we left it under foil until it began to sprout. The pumpkin was jack-o-lantern and the pepper were green bell. 

 To our dismay, a few days of under-watering (coupled with yet another cold snap with freezing temps) killed off only too many of our precious seedlings. We emptied a few of the containers into the planter outside and forgot about the old dirt... until these little guys showed up! To our delight, some seeds that had not yet germinated began to sprout! Here you see cabbage, black seeded simpson lettuce and even two small tomato plants I believe are Red Cherry.  

 In April I was finally able to properly condition the bales. This year I went with Scott's Turf Builder Lawn Food, because of the high nitrogen content. There were more cold snaps and issues. *sigh* So frustrating! FINALLY, I got my brandywine tomato (the only one left) and our other few starts planted.

Our only remaining cucumber was placed lovingly in the bale closest to the pine tree by Giraffe, along with a potato gone to seed. (It is tucked deep into the bale from the front.) Unfortunately, this little guy lived a short week or two and also kicked it. :(

 In May we FINALLY made it to the farmer's market. I was really hopeful that I could get a lot of starters to replace the plants I'd lost. The day was ICE COLD. I could see my breath. No shock, another freezing dip was coming! I got an early girl tomato, summer lettuce, 4 golden cross cabbage, an ever green lettuce, 4 pac man broccoli, two kinds of chives, and 4 slicing cucumber plants.

They would be right at home in our bales if it ever warmed up. On Mother's Day I got my chance, and laid in the new plants. 

Fast-forward several weeks bc this is so long. We got everything planted, and only lost one cabbage out of the bunch. Everything else is thriving! :) We ate the lettuce, in fact. Giraffe harvested it too close to the root, so I am watching to see if it grows back. We also noticed our early girl needed support, so Giraffe and I strung yarn between the poles while we waited on Hubs to put up the 2x4 and wire. 

Meanwhile, the lettuce and cabbage continued to grow in the planter. It has been harvested for salad and regrown twice already. The tomatoes were moved over to the bales. I was also given some by Farm Girl and her husband and bought a Husky, for a grand total of 14 tomato plants of five varieties. 

The carrots, too, have continued to grow in the aquarium. We thinned out quite a few to make room. So far, we can still only see the dirt from the outside. Go figure! (All of the roots we saw in the beginning - those tiny seeds I have pics of somewhere - are no longer there. I thinned them too much.)

This is the bale with the golden cross cabbage (we lost one of four), and the two kinds of lettuce that were harvested too low. You can see they are attempting a minor comeback. lol

I picked up more seeds, and Koala and I seeded them into an empty bale. They've just begun to come up. I noticed today that something is making away with them. *frowns* I've seen a squirrel running my bales, and many birds off and on. Insects are another pillager, so it is hard to tell. 

Excuse the dirty look, by the way. That is not a plant ailment. It is diatomacious earth sprinkled over them for pest control. Here you see my early girl (the big one, brandywine (hiding behind her), the two varieties of alium chives, the two I think are red cherries, and (far left) the husky. 

These are watermelon. One sugar baby and one... oh, foo... I really don't remember! This is terrible! I will have to see if I cannot find my info and get it all written down. 

Again, pardon the dust. No sooner had we strung yarn across than the cucumbers than they set out tendrils! Yay! We just love that! You can see they took root and really began to grow. :)

You can see that my beautiful red bell pepper went from lovely to wilty. We are still trying to save her.

And the carrots keep on growing... :) :) ) 

And the lettuce keeps on growing and being harvested for salad. It has a really good flavor, by the way. :)

I re-seeded the carrot bale (which had but five little sprouts). It is now full of wee greens. :)

Every bale gardener's affirmation... the growth of fungi in and on the bales. Sure enough, we're doing a bang-up job this year! This in spite of the illness, weather, and other setbacks. Yaaay! :) 

HUBS TOOK DOWN THE YARN AND PUT UP THE WIRE AND BOARD!!! YESSSS!!!!

Now my lovely, large bale garden actually LOOKS lovely and large! hehe Plants are growing in and on every single bale. More plants are growing in planters and the aquarium. I wake up early every morning and go out there to just breathe a minute. Every morning, there is new growth. This has been a rough year, indeed, in so many ways. With hard work and time, I have my place of peace. It has all been worth it. :)

***Oh! I also have zuccini! lol I'm so forgetful! haha I hope to get some butternut and spaghetti squash laid in, and more potato starts before the season is out.