My Garden 2014

[Lollykoko]

[pa_friendly_guy]

When do you plan on setting the bales out Lolly? It seems that you are close to planting time, so you may need to add something to your bales. What does a bale of straw cost these days ? I have not had to buy any for some time now. Once the bale rots down what do you do, just add another bale on top, or do you use the old bale for mulch some where else in the garden? Just curious about the process and how it works.

[Lollykoko]

Guy, I have had the hardest time getting the back of my pick-up truck emptied out this spring. When the sawmill came in, it took me 5 days to get it out of the back of the truck because of the back-hoe anti-theft switch. Then my son and DIL needed to use the truck to move stuff from their house to mine/ours, and it took two weeks before I drove it again (just today they had to look for one more thing hidden behind the seat). Then, a recent trip north to celebrate my grand-niece's college graduation got me a load of corrugated drainage tile to haul around for a while. That is finally at the farm, so in theory I could pick up straw tomorrow. Reality says that I need to mow the grass inside the fence then lay out some sheet mulch to put the bales on before I go shopping. The seasonal market that carries straw bales sometimes has the best corrugated cardboard that can be hauled away. The big shipping containers that melons arrive in are about 3 feet tall and 3/4 of an inch thick. A truckload of those would make me really happy, and then it's time for straw bales.

I haven't checked prices this year. Whatever the cost is, I'm sure I will pay it. However, it might make the difference between getting 3 bales or 8 of them. My truck will haul 3. But if the price is right, I will call Charlotte and ask her to meet me. The 8 foot bed on her truck is also wider than my little grocery getter, so it would more than double my carrying home power. Then, if I can convince a couple of my housemates to use a bucket for a few days, I could be ready to plant by Memorial Day, which is about the latest you want to wait for a full garden.

[mannytheseacow]

Straw is $5 a bale in my area. Same for good quality hay. I see the farmers starting to make their first cuts of hay now so I imagine the price on that will drop soon.

[pa_friendly_guy]

That's about what I thought, that costs a little bit to make a garden with straw bales then. But the ease of doing it that way may out weigh the cost for many people, especially people with physical handy caps or people that are mmmmmm how should I say this, old as I am. or people that don't like to dig in the dirt.

[matt walker]

I've been working on a large work project lately and it's been really kicking my butt physically so I haven't gotten a whole lot done here, but I wanted to give you guys an idea of how the new plantings are coming along so far. This is about a week ago, just a little evening stroll through the new plantings. I've got tons of ideas and stuff to share about all this but I figured some visuals of what I have going is better than nothing. This job will be winding down soon and I hopefully will have time to walk you all through what exactly I'm going for here. For now, enjoy my evening stroll and some homemade music. Sorry about the shakey cam!

[Lollykoko]

It is looking good, Matt. I am supposing that the hoops and chicken wire are to keep the critters from playing around in the new hugel beds.

[matt walker]

Thanks Lolly, yep, the fencing was originally for the chickens, but it's doing such a good job keeping the dogs and cat from digging in there that I'm going to keep it up until things are established.

[mannytheseacow]

Wow, you're months ahead of me in your climate and growing conditions. Are you direct seeding your greens or starting it in your greenhouse? I have terrible luck with starting seeds indoors. If you're starting indoors I'm interested in your method.

[matt walker]

Almost all the annuals you see in the berms are direct sown. What's really interesting is that the south facing berms are months ahead of the flat ground on my property. Over the last couple months the soil in those berms was anywhere from 10° to 20° warmer than the surrounding soil on days when there was any sun at all. It's really amazing, and I'm starting to believe that it has as much to do with de-coupling the soil from the huge heat sink below it as much as the angle of incidence with the sun. The top two thirds of the berms are just amazingly warm, and it's making an obvious difference in my plantings. I've never had the tender summer greens do so well here, and never so early.

I've got so much to share on this subject, I feel like I have had huge breakthroughs this spring. I'm working on a major project with work right now and it's almost behind me. I'm working this weekend and will hopefully wrap this up this week so I can get back in the garden and show you guys some more.