Skip to main content

Update on my Straw bale Garden


I want to share an update on my straw bale garden experiment.
I hadn't planted anything before I left to go to California last month. I was afraid it was going to be hot and dry and no one to tend to the bales.
Boy was I wrong, we had a record amount of rain and cool weather while I was gone.
My bales were perfect for starting a garden. They were well into the composting phase of their development and ready to plant.



Last week I planted pumpkins, a climbing butternut squash and some cucumbers. I planted vines variety because my bales are next to the fence and I figured I would take advantage of it


As you can see they all came up so beautifully except for some older pumpkin seeds that I went ahead and planted.... being very doubtful they would even come up. 
So I'll need to replant something in that spot


As you can see from this photo I have some weeding to do around my bales. weeds find any crevice to grow.
After I do that, I've decided to plant next bush green beans. I like the variety top crop, which I have been growing for quite a few years now. Very productive, has a long season and usually pretty diseased resistant. The reason why I wanted to try them on the straw bales it because I'm getting tired of bending over and picking green beans which sometimes can take over an hour to do my 18 foot bed.
 I'm hoping production will be just as good with the benefit of not bending over because the plants will now be at waist height.
 I'll definitely let you know how that works out when it comes to harvest time. 
I meant to write this before I had left about the fertilizer I used
I went organic and use blood meal versus chemical fertilizer. Now I brought my blood meal from a feed producer locally and I'm not sure if it was because of the type of blood meal used or what but it stunk bad and it's not just stunk bad it attracted to flys like crazy.
Now if I lived in the suburbs and was going to do this, I'm not sure if I would use blood meal because of the smell and the attraction of flys. I don't think my neighbors would of liked that but seeing how I'm out in the country and it didn't make no difference to me....heck I raise cattle and you know how sweet smelling they are, like flowers, 
Now that it's been awhile there is no smell.


Comments

  1. Wow, I never would have thought about a odor issue :( Looks good though!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Welcome friends to share a thought, I enjoy reading them and will try my best to reply back by email most of the time. But if you do not hear back it's because you are a no-reply blogger.

Popular posts from this blog

How to Make a Portable Design Wall

I had wanted to get a portable design wall to take to retreats but did not want to pay the price. Looked at various pins on pinterest and took ideas from more than one to come up with my verison. It worked out great and only cost a fraction of the price. The PVC pipes, joints and 2 yards of felt cost under $22.00 My design wall is 4' x 4' which stands approximately 5 1/5' tall. For this size need 2 - 10ft length of 3/4" PVC pipe for the frame and 4ft of 1" PVC pipe for the feet Cut the 3/4" PVC into 4 - 4' section                                                                                       2 - 1' section              Cut the 1"  PVC into 4 - 1' section          The joints you'll need will be 2 - 3/4" elbows 2 - 3/4" T's 2 - 3/4" to 1" T (this will be the base of the Feet) 4 - 1" elbow Also need pipe cutters (this cost me almost as much

Yarn Along 2/20/13 Spoon Pin Doily

It's snowing here and I know some of you are tired of snow but here we will take the moisture any way we can get it. Plus it just gives me a reason to stay in and work on some of my projects. In this picture I'm not sure if you can make it out but in the background there are some wild turkeys that hang around the house sometime, just  chilling This project I'm working on is Spool Pin Doilies.   I had never heard of them before until Bonnie Hunter had mentioned it on her blog . She a had a viewer send her one for her sewing machine along with a pattern. I did not like the pattern but loved the idea so I decided to make up my own version. I wanted a more simple, smaller and fuller doily. So I tried different thread sizes to get one that I like. (From left to right) I tried sock yarn, which I'll redo because I think I like that look. Heavy weight crochet thread, nope too big Bamboo yarn, I like it. Looks good on my Kenmore. Pearl cott

What's Up

Well that is a big question, what's up Seeing how I haven't posted since before the retreat I went to. So I will show what I did at the retreat and what I have been doing these past few days, which is this Log Cabin Christmas Tree  wall hanging I have the blocks completed and now it just a matter of getting them sewn together. I'll get to that tomorrow. While at the retreat I made this baby quilt top with the disappearing 4-patch block. I had a charm pack and used some "snow" fabric Kaufman snow is one of my favorite whites to use. It's white but not a stark, bright white, goes well with a majority of the fabric I've collected. I started late making my blocks for RCS14 First I wasn't sure what pattern I wanted to make and then with all that was going on the first part of the year, I didn't start until July. One quilt is using a quarter log cabin in solid colors. I made these at the retreat, have the other half t