Strawbale Gardening - no weeding, no hoeing, no tilling

Cattle Panels make a good trellis

I added two sections to my tomato rows over the weekend. I had some extra tomato plants and needed the space.

Instead of buying more concrete wire, I went to Tractor Supply and bought two, 16 ft. cattle panels. They were on sale for $18.99 each.

The cattle panels, also referred to as feed lot panels, use much heavier gauge wire and won't rust.

They work great as a trellis for tomatoes.

Although they are only 4 ft. high, that should still give me plenty of room to tie my tomatoes up. Since I don't have more bales I plan to transplant the tomatoes into 3 gallon containers and sit them under the trellis.

 

I finally got my bales planted today. Hopefully the ants are gone and everything will do OK with all the rain we're supposed to get this week!

My Bale Garden

Heather in Mississippi

 

Kent ~ I have access to some more bales if you're interested. PM me if so.

 

Appreciate the bale offer; that is very kind of you, but I'm good for this year.

I do have some extra tomatoes this year that I'm going to put into 3 gallon containers and place them under my cattle panel trellis to see how they do compared to the bales.

- - - - - - - - - - -

I've never grown yellow tomatoes, and I finally found some Golden Jubilees at Home Depot yesterday and bought two.

I did some research at www.davesgarden.com and saw where a fellow bale gardener, Lena from New Zealand, just loved them, so I'm back to Home Depot this morning to get two more.

I have 2 bales left with nothing in them so I'll put the yellow tomatoes there.

 

Yellowing plants, any ideas

Hello everyone,

This has been a great thread to follow. The wife and I decided to use the strawbales this year and everything seems to be going well except for one thing. Some not all of what we have planted as far as tomatoes, cukes, and peppers had yellowing leaves or are light green instead of dark green. Is it too much water, not enough or do they need more fertilizer. So far used 1 dose of miracle gro about 10 days ago and some fish emulsion this week. Any suggestions would be helpfull.

Steven

 

Steven, it sounds like your plants are low on nitrogen. The fish emulsion is a good organic fertilizer as a compliment, but it's NPK rating is around 5-3-3, kind of low.

I've had the same symptoms in previous years. Once I increased my Miracle Gro applications, everything turned around quickly.

Since we're getting a lot of sun lately, I'd water & feed twice a day with my Miracle Gro and see how your plants do in a few days.

Straw Bales provide practically NO nitrogen.

 

Feeding

Kent, Let me make sure I am understanding this. You water twice a day and both times feed with Miracle Gro. Which of the many types of MG are you using. All the ones I have seen are good just for a single feeding using their feeder. That could be a rather expensive proposition. What about the slow release versions.

Thanks

Steven

 

I use the packs of Miracle Gro for Vegetables.

If I want to water my entire garden I'll use the whole pack in the sprayer attachment. It takes that much.

If I just want to use a little on just a few plants, I'll use 1 tbl spoon/gallon in a watering can.

I believe 1 packet will do approx. 50 gallons.

What I proposed to use was what I call CPR for plants. You're trying to save your plants and get them back on the mend.

Try just feeding once/day for the next few days and see if that is helpful.

 

I've planted some peppers and cukes and found that something is eating at them. I sprinkled them with sevin dust and whatever it is, just keeps coming back. This morning when I was watering, I noticed ants on one of the bales, so that might be the bug chewing them. I also noticed that this foamy brown stuff was coming out of one of the bales today; it wasn't there last night. Any clue on what that stuff is and what type of pest repellent I should be using to take care of these problems?

Other than that, my 'maters, and bush beans are doing great!

Thanks for the tips on this... I greatly appreciate it.

 

Another bale gardener at Daves Garden posted a short comment about strawberries:

I planted strawberries last year and they did great. I didn't do a thing with them (the bales) all year and now, this year they (strawberries) are doing magnificent.

I just had some compost delivered and the delivery man was going nuts about my strawbale strawberries.

I guess the second year makes all the difference. This is a picture from last year.

 

Take a look at my post # 311 about ants.

The brownish run-off is normal. Good sign the bales are decomposing nicely.

 

Ants

I think ants ate a lot of my vegetable seeds! Tilled & planted a great garden (traditional way). Waited & waited (3 weeks) but no cukes, no lettuce, no peppers & only half the watermellon came up & a lot of squash plants are missing. Have begun replanting. Only thing in the garden is corn, radishes, a handful of carrots, 3 watermellon, a few squash & beans & tomatoes.

We just moved in 2 months ago. House was empty for 9 months. Most of the neighborhood fire ants had moved here. Have a couple of different kinds.
The little ones seem to like the boric acid/sugar water mixture I put on a styrofoam plate in the garden.
I just can't believe none of those seeds germinated at all so it must have been the ants. Hope they don't get the next batch but there are far fewer ants today than there was 2 weeks ago. I have really been putting a hurting on them!

 

Hello Everyone, I a New Guy from Kansas to Strawbale gardening. I have read all Your posts all the way back to first ones. I've learned a Lot too. Got a Couple of Questions awnsered from Kent too. I've had my Garden planted for 4 weeks now & things are really growing. Putting 2nd Cattle Panel up in Tomatoes (28 plants) to day. I have 28 bales planted now & if everything grows like I think they will, I plan on doing 100 bales next Year. Anyone tried Potatoes, catrrots, or beets in Bales.
When I planted my bales I opened bale & added a couple cups of Miricale Grow Potting Mix & then planted the plants. I've looked at differnt Methods of Gardening & found Strawbale Gardening suited best for Me. So Thanks for all the Good Info. john"Wishbone"willems

 

John: welcome to 4042.

Wow! 100 bales next year!

You're definitely hooked!

As you can see in my previous pics I only did potatoes one year, but they did fantastic. My neighbor's doing some in some "new" bales and they seem to be doing well.

I added some composted cow manure to my bales this morning. First time I've done that in 5 years. Low grade stuff but keeps a steady supply of nutrients to the roots when I water.

To paraphrase Col. Kilgore, "I love the smell of manure in the morning! It smells like...gardening!"

 

Hey everyone, I am new to the forum and very excited over straw bale gardening. I have my 6 bales out there breaking down as we speak.

I know you guys are a little bit aways but I wanted to tell you that I was able to purchase the 30-0-0 Ammonium Nitrate loose and by the pound. Stone Brothers in Durham sells it like this for 50 cents a lbs

Stone Bros. & Byrd
700 Washington St.
Durham, NC 27701
919.682.1311

stonebrothers(dot)com

They are one of those old fashioned feed stores/ hardware stores that have been around since the early 1900's. Its pretty cool in there actually.

I also want to add that I first used the bloodmeal and I did not get any satisfaction out of that. First of all it never dissolved on the haystack, it just sort of rolled around and secondly it never heated my bales up. As soon as I switched over to the Ammonium Nitrate I noticed a big difference. It dissolved and the next day my bale was warming up.

I am still breaking my bales down and then I will be planting collards, green peppers, and red peppers for starters. I also planted taters in garbage cans, and tomatoes in hanging baskets. LOL I am weird like that.:hurray:

You can check my profile to go to the link for my little farm. Its the tale of a Northerner trying to live the southern life. LOL

 

Kent (or anyone else willing to chime in)... some advice please. I've got 4 bales for some extra tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and cukes (saves a trip down to the garden). I've got a soaker hose on top down of the bales (each side of the plants). I'm trying to decide how long to run the soaker hose each day. I'm currently running it at dawn and dusk an hour each time. Too little or too much? It does put out a nice fine mist on the plants as well.

Thanks for any advice

 

msjay2u: welcome to you, too. Good info about Stone Bros.

CrzyForBaseball: once the water starts running out the bottom of the bales you can turn off your soakers.

Or you can water each bale with the hose for about 15 seconds each.

 

I have all My drip irrigation installed this weekend. Need to get hose conecter end to hook up hose from house. Found My 25 pound pressuer regulator. I'm using 1/4 inch soaker hose in whole garden. I ran the soaker hose right next to plants. Plants have been 3 weeks now. There growing better than if they were in the ground to Me. This strawbale way is looking better all the time. john-ks

 

I was thinking of takng a soaker hose just long enough to lay on my bales doubled and leave it there. I would connect my regular hose to it and water till I see the water running, out which will probably not be long and then removing the regular hose. Having the seperate hose keeps from dragging the regular hose around each time. Although I have not tried it yet I would think an hours is way too long. Simply because the water is generally running out. I plan to use mines 2 times a day as well but only about 15 minutes at a time if that long.
THOUGHTS??

 

Kent

was that you on wral this morning talking about the gardening????