Strawbale Gardening - no weeding, no hoeing, no tilling

Good morning, sister!

Better Boys for all-purpose eating/sandwiches and canning.

German Johnsons for sandwiches.

And a few other varieties mixed in.

 

Good morning, brother!

Stephen's already has Better Boy plants, don't know about German Johnsons, but I'll look for them. Thanks for the tip!

Well, I was wrong about the kind of blood meal I bought. I must have looked at that bag somewhere (Home Depot, maybe -?) over the weekend, but I wound up buying Miracle Gro Organic Choice Blood Meal 12-0-0 from Stephen's ($4.00 for a 3 lb bag.)

The seeds I bought were:

Early Summer Crookneck Squash
Ashley Cucumber
Clemson Spineless Okra

I read there is smaller okra called Annie Oakley.

Have you ever heard of or tried that kind before? It would be nice to have shorter okra plants since I'm only 5'6"!

My seeds are from Wyatt-Quarles. I found this helpful as to what kind of seeds they supply and when to plant. http://www.wqseeds.com/planting.html

Today I found a pack of old seeds that I had stuck aside and forgotten about. I let my 6 year old daughter have them. They're those tiny, decorative pumpkins - Jack Be Littles. We put some of the seeds in peat pots and *if* they come up get a pumpkin bale for her. Have you ever done pumpkins before? I would imagine it would be like the squash plants, but we'll see what happens with the seeds before I worry about getting a bale for them.

Something else I thought of asking you the other day... have you ever tried strawberry plants in straw?

 

No experience with the Annie Oakley okra; always stuck with the Clemson Spineless. I personally don't care for okra. I just grow it for my bride.

I haven't tried strawberries, but others have tried it successfully.

 

Mmmmm, okra -- one of my favorite summer veggies! Must be fried for my groom lol to eat it though. Squash and okra battered and fried together... :drool: So, how will I pick it if they get 9+ feet tall? Do you have to use a ladder?

 

Posting pictures

How does one go about posting pictures to this site? It's so easy on the DG site, but I can't figure it out on this one.

Suz

 

HOst the pic on photobucket.com (FREE) and then copy it here by using the insert image icon above.

 

Yep, have a step ladder handy if you can't reach the pods. If you have that "problem", it'll be worth the trouble.

 

Photos

Thanks, Harley girl! OK- I went to Photo Bucket, joined, uploaded photos . . . but I'll be darned if I can find the Insert Images icon you mentioned. :ack:
This is WAY harder than it needs to be, isn't it? Do you suppose it's possible that you have it and I don't? :?

Suz

 

Suz, here's how I use Photobucket to post a pic.

1. Under every pic you upload to Photobucket you will see "IMG Code" and an URL address beside it.

2. Just left-click on the URL address beside "IMG Code" and you will see "Copied" pop up.

3. Now you're ready to PASTE that URL address into the 4042 post or where ever you want.

 

Thanks, Kent and Harley Girl!

Testing the photo thing out- Here's a picture of the 5 day old peat pots. They went CRAZY with the heating pad under the tray!
IMG]http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll266/SuzanSkylark/my%20bale%20garden/100_1183.jpg[/IMG]
Suz

 

Aargh! It didn't work!

:ack:

 

Is this what you're trying to show us?



You left out a BRACKET at the beginning of the URL from Photobucket, that's all. You'll get the hang of it.

 

Thanks once again

Ha-ha . . yup. That was it. I have to stop using the heating pad with the germination process. Today (2 days after that first picture) I found another 10-15 of them going nuts in there. It's too early to put them outside, so I'm going to 'harden them off' on my back sun porch. No heat there. Guess I'll see how tough they are.

Suz

 

I see from WRAL weather forecasts that we may have a possible frost in our area Monday night, so that's why I wait until around May 1st to transplant any thing into my bales.

 

Today was such a tease . .

What a tease Mother Nature is! It was 75° today!!! It's so hard, this waiting!! Glad my bales aren't ready yet, or I might be tempted to do sumpin stupid!:withstupid:

Suz

 

Talk about teasing weather... click here and look at our 5 day forecast. Be sure to notice the 32 degree forecast for next Tuesday night. 82 today, 54 on Monday. :x

 

Dag on, I had to go all the way to page 5 to find this thread.


Anyway, I'm getting ready to erect trellises and put down weed cloth. My seeds are nice little plants now (yeah!) and I can hardly wait to get them transplanted into my bales!

I'll post pics in a just a bit, got to get back out there. I needed to get on here and study the pics of Kent's trellises.

 

ready2cmyKing: got my bales prepping and have flagged where I've got to dig my holes for the deer fence. Organic methods just aren't doing the job, so I ordered a 7.5 ft x 330 ft deer fence.

 

This year's set up





Finally got everything planted this past Friday.

Tomatoes: Better Boy, German Johnson, Celebrity, Parks Whopper, Super Fantastic, Homestead, and Cherry Tomatoes

Peppers - Sweet and Hot Banana, Jalapeno, Cayenne, and Habanero

Cukes, squash, and zucchini.

Deer fence area is roughly 50 x 60.

 

Looks great Kent! My bales are sprouting wheat now. I'll be putting the plants in as soon as the weather permits. CAN HARDLY WAIT!!