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[thistlebloom]

My straw bale garden has me discouraged. I had such enthusiastic visions! I had thought it would be a great way to cheat the scab out of keeping me from growing a few potatoes this year and a fun gardening
experience for the kids.
I don't blame the method, it's obviously wildly successful for many.
Who knows what the variants are in my own patch. I closely followed the directions the book gave.
I'm not familiar with Nichols nursery, it might have been a good resource for pros and cons...

The odd spring and summer might be blamed for some of the troubles as well as my own distractions with work, but I had hoped for a little more latitude in maintenance.

I'll chalk it up to another year of garden education and try to take something away for growing next year.

 

[Beekissed]

Supposedly, this BTE method is to be better the longer one uses it, as the chips mulch down and become more neutral and creates a nice layer of topsoil. Either way, I'm now committed to this, as removing those chips from our garden just could never be done...they are too pressed into the clay underneath now and one would just have to till them in, creating problems for years to come.

I just have to trust that it's going to get better. Until then, I am working around the most obvious issues to see if I can produce things a little differently until the chips mulch down. In all the information about BTE, no one had mentioned that the chips keep the soil very cool for much longer in the season than just tilling, planting and mulching can do...this creates a problem that I'll be addressing next year by planting much, much later than I normally do. My plants just sat in the garden all spring in a sort of stasis, not growing and/or succumbing to all manner of pests and fungus...it wasn't until it got stinking hot at the end of June and into July that they started growing and producing.

Next year I'll not plant until June for most of the crops like tomatoes, peppers, cukes, squash, beans, etc.

 

[bobm]

I have one flower bed on the E side of the house that gets sunlight from sunrise to about 1:00 mid day. It is 2 1/2 ft wide and 14 ft long. The former owners put on wood chips along with small pieces of branches which they dug into the soil as well as about 3" thick on top. Nothing wants to grow there more than a few months. The soil there is bone dry even though I water it as often and the same amount of water as just across the gravel walkway. This spring I dug out the multch cover and sifted out as much as I could the NON- DECOMPOSED wood chips and pencil thin branch pieces as I could and then mixed in peat moss and added amonium sulfate . I then planted corral bells and day lillies so I will see how they fare in a few more months. Just accross the gravel walkway all of my plants, shrubs, and trees are growing just fine as evidenced by my garden having been selected to be on the County's garden tour 3 times now. I did this fix at the advice of the Master Gardener Instructor and full Professor from WSU .

 

[baymule]

We got another load of mulch delivered, while we were gone even! We are putting the round bales of hay in the barn right now, the horses are pooping and dropping hay and making a mess of things. When we get a sufficient layer of trampled hay and poop, we are going to mulch the barn deep in the wood chip mulch the high line contractors have brought us. We'll put the hay back outside and let the horses enjoy their barn. We figure on letting it stay in the barn for a year or so, then dig it out. Garden gold!

 

[Beekissed]

I agree! You might even lace it up with whole grains as you layer in bedding, letting those grains ferment in the litter pack, then put your hogs in there in the spring....Salatin does that every year with his cattle and that stuff that comes out of his barn is amazing stuff. I've actually held it in my hand....light as a feather and has no smell. The hogs root through it all to eat the grains, add their own feces to it and aerate the whole mass.

It also keeps his cattle warm all winter, so a win/win.

 

[baymule]

I've read that too and it sounds like a good idea.

 

[Beekissed]

Picking sweet corn lately and it is delicious! Hope to can up the rest this week. Grand girl can pick the silk off an ear really well with those little fingers...Great Ol' Bat shows her the ropes on being a country girl.

Vines are all going crazy long about now....pumpkin, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, cantaloupe, watermelon and yellow squash all competing for space under the corn and through the taters. Beans and cukes taking off too.

Getting plenty of rain lately and the tomatoes are hanging ripe, needing picked and preserved. Seems like everything's coming on at once now, as per usual. I thank God for the bounty and the means to preserve it all.

Those blighty tomatoes are around 7+ ft. tall now, even after I had trimmed them off at 6 ft...they just decided they will grow anyway and I'm done pruning them. The Pruden's Purple win the blue ribbon this year for production, with the Brandywines coming in a close second. Getting some decent sized maters from those this year. Will save seed. The one cherry tomato is around 10 ft now and laying over the arbor over the garden gate.

The peppers have decided to perk up and grow, though I'm still not seeing production there, we usually don't until around fall.

My son's little BTE is producing accordingly, with watermelon and cantaloupe vines taking over the whole space of his little garden, little watermelons peeking through the vines now. Aliza likes to show me her "balls" growing in the garden...hilarious! Their stuff all looks gorgeous and lush, even the flowers are taking off and putting on a show. I need to get a pic of their garden.

 

[Nyboy]

What is your mom doing with tooth brush ?

 

[Beekissed]

That's not a toothbrush, it's a cuticle/nail brush and we've found it's the quickest and most efficient way of removing the corn silk off an ear of corn during the shucking process. You'll see Aliza has one in her hand too...she likes "brushing" the hair on the corn.

 

[baymule]

What is your mom doing with tooth brush ?

Duh! Brushing corn teeth of course.