This has literally changed the way I will be growing from now on. I've already surpassed harvests from all previous years and the plants are beautiful and healthy. There are learning curves of what I would do differently next year, but not much. I am growing anything that I can think of that may benefit from this type of growing...basil, tomatoes, cucs, eggplant, okra, green beans, kale, lettuce, peppers, watermelon, cantaloupe, trying out a sweet potato, which i think will do a really well. Truly amazed at my side garden this year, which has become one of my favorite places in the yard and which I will talk about in another post, now that I know how to resize pics to post, thanks to the forum 'how to resize pics'. Boy do I have pics...lol. Ok back to this method of gardening...before during and after viewing many YT videos since last year, it was more intimidating that I expected, but once I did the first few days of 'conditioning' the bales...then my comfort level was much better. You need to condition the bales for at least 12 to 21 days, depending on the weather. I started mine in April 2021 after I was well out of the woods to be able to tend to the bales everyday for those weeks. I even brought my mother out to work the bales with me and y'all she had a blast just helping me. I'm still learning patience as the disease progresses, but the garden seems to be the place to put her mind and me at ease. We had a time visualizing where to put the bales for what the main crop would be. This was so much fun and to watch the plants take root and begin to grow, was/is an amazing experience. Weeds are not an issue and the only problem I really have is how to utilize the growing spaces on the bales..it literally makes you want to just fill up the bales with any and everything...even growing on the sides. As the bales decompose they of course loose their height and begin to sink in the middle. At the beginning of the season, we have a tendency to clip/trellis plants and have no issue with sinking because the plant goes where the trellis goes. Not so with straw bale gardening...be prepared to release those clips, strings, ties...because I forgot the bales will start sinking and therefore will lift some plants out of the bale. Happened today with one of my cuc plants. Leaching of nutrients is another big one that I'm getting on top of now--since some of my maters have BER. Still with those issues, this is a heck of a way to grow if you have a shortage of space or just plain bad soil. One bale will more than likely produce enough for a small family and when the bales decompose after this season, they will find their new home in my beds for mulch and food for the worms...WIN WIN FOR ME!! check out some of my pics. Trying to get the quality much better but you get the picture..hint hint. View Photo Album: 2021 Straw Bale Gardening
Great foto display, Hummer. I was very interested to see how you did that and your results. You really are doing well with those bales. Who would have thought that you would move on to this technique back when you were aquaponicing. You really have developed into quite a gardener haven’t you. Also, it is great to see you back, mate.
