OK, folks, let's start Round 2 - Planting, monitoring, and sharing results
You are ENCOURAGED to add your location on the link below:
http://www.frappr.com/strawbalegardeners
This message was edited Apr 12, 2006 8:42 PM
Straw Bale Gardening - Part 2 - Planting & Maintenance
About the ammonium sulfate - it seems like I read that this will raise acid levels. I'll try to find the information.
Yeah! Louisville is now added to your list.
KyLady
I snuck in last night and added mine. Kent where's your marker?
Soil acidity / alkalinity — there's a good article at Wikipedia on Soil pH, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_pH
SalemSunshine raises the concern about whether adding Ammonium Sulfate will raise the acidity of one's soil too much -- I am for the moment comforted by the phrase "short term" in the final paragraph of the section I quote below. Our soil tested out at 6.5 acidity last summer when we go to this "blasted heath" of a long-ignored yard.
Altering soil pH
The aim when attempting to adjust soil acidity is not so much to neutralise the pH as to replace lost cation nutrients, particularly calcium. This can be achieved by adding limestone to the soil, which is available in various forms:
* Agricultural lime (ground limestone or chalk). These are natural forms of calcium carbonate which are extracted in the UK from areas such as the Mendips and Salisbury Plain. This is probably the cheapest form of lime for gardening and agricultural use and can be applied at any time of the year. These forms are slow reacting, thus their effect on soil fertility and plant growth is steady and long lasting. Ground lime should be applied to clay and heavy soils at a rate of about 500 to 1,000 g/m² (1 to 2 lb/yd² or 4,500 to 9,000 lb/ac).
* Quicklime and slaked lime. The former is produced by burning rock limestone in kilns. It is highly caustic and cannot be applied directly to the soil. Quicklime reacts with water to produce slaked, or hydrated, lime, thus quicklime is spread around agricultural land in heaps to absorb rain and atmospheric moisture and form slaked lime, which is then spread on the soil. Quicklime should be applied to heavy clays at a rate of about 400 to 500 g/m² (0.75 to 1 lb/yd² or 3,600 to 4,500 lb/ac), hydrated lime at 250 to 500 g/m² (0.5 to 1 lb/yd²). However, quicklime and hydrated lime are very fast acting and are not suitable for inclusion in an organic system. Their use is prohibited under the standards of both The Soil Association and the Henry Doubleday Research Association.
* Calcium sulfate, known as gypsum can be used to amend soil acidity and is also useful for lightening the structure of heavy clays. Gypsum can be purchased or can sometimes be obtained from old domestic plaster.
The pH of an alkaline soil is lowered by adding sulfur, iron sulfate or aluminum sulfate, although these tend to be expensive, and the effects short term. Urea, urea phosphate, ammonium nitrate, ammonium phosphates, ammonium sulfate and monopotassium phosphate also lower soil pH.
Well, I've gone and done it. With my bales cooled off, and the weather supposedly only dropping into the 50's for the next week, I planted 2 Mexico tomato plants in my straw bales today. I can always cover them with plastic buckets at night if I have to. Pushing my luck with Jack Frost?
I'm losing it, I tell 'ya! ☺
That little guy seems to be standing right up there looking good. I would just keep an eye on those temps if they are anything like ours.
Jeanette
Hey Big Red, are those the tomatillo's or just regular red tomatoes? Were they from seed or did you find them at a local nursery? Hope to have some photos soon of our plants.
Melinda
Can somebody put the map thingy on this thread? Kent maybe Dave would make it sticky and it could stay at the top.
alyrics: I love the idea of having the map in this thread
I've got the link in my first post if ya'll think that's sufficient
This message was edited Apr 12, 2006 9:37 AM
Here is the map.... not in the top... but, it's going to be changing all the time, a sticky wouldn't work.... you can't change the picture once you put one up.
What I meant was to put the link to the map in a sticky, otherwise the link will be lost in this long thread by the end of summer. If you want to link right now you have to go to the first thread and find it. Do I sound lazy or what?
Check again - Kent put it at the top of this thread..
knocking myself in the head - whap whap whap
LOL-- just make sure whenever a new thread gets started, the link to the map is there. :-)
Ok, its looking better. What about the middle of the country? Nobody lives there?
I added myself in Osawatomie Kansas....I know there have to be more.
You have to go back to the link to check for any new add ons, so far, as of five minutes ago, I am the only one in Kansas. :-(
Well, I will be one, probably in SW Virginia once we buy property. In the mantime, I shall lurk.
OK this looks too interesting, but I don't know how to get to the first thread or info on this straw thing. Please advise.......thanks
Here's the first thread (if you were to scroll down a bit in the Vegetable forum you'd see it, too): http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/584625/
Jeanette,
I'll be sure to keep an eye out but the prediction is a warm spell for at least for a week. If we can get to the end of the month maybe we're home free. I just had a melon seedling that came up from last year and you can't fool Mother Nature! But then, what does a dumb melon seed know? ☺
Melinda,
Just regular red, beefsteak tomatoes. I started them from seed which I ordered from Tomato Growers Supply. I bought these last year but I'm just getting around to try them.
I also set out 3 Golden Acre cabbage and 7 Calabrese brocolli in my bales today, going to hold off on setting out any more tomatoes until later.
Big Red,
Sounds great! Well, I did it too. Here is a panaromic view of our 42 bale garden. Just about completely full of great plants! In the far left back corner I am trying some onions. Where the arches are I have 16 tomatoes. Then on the other bales lots of okra, several hot peppers and some bell peppers. The black circle will have 6 more tomatoes in ground. Herbs are in the very front. The what I call space ships have peas. the very back right has a fence wire to support the pole beans, which are planted. In the bales just in front of that are seeds for bush beans, next the squash 3 varieties, up next are cucumber, canteloupe, and eggplant, and finally some more herbs. WOW!!! I must be crazy but I love it.
Wow Melinda, looks great! You really jumped right in, didn't you? Wish I had gotten more bales after seeing yours. :o(
Keep those pictures coming, it's interesting to compare and see how others are doing with their bale gardening.
I thought some of sticking an onion plant in here and there also, I bet they'll do great. I never had much luck with onions planted the traditional way, guess I'll try a few plants.
It's amazing how my Mexico tomato plants have 'taken' to these straw bales. In just two days they are much healthier looking, really dark green foliage and just a super lookin plant over-all.
This message was edited Apr 14, 2006 11:07 PM
Quick organic question:
How much BLOOD MEAL or FISH EMULSION (or any other substance) are any of you using per bale to get them prepped? I have zero experience with either, but it sounds like they are working well for you.
The gardens are looking great. This is going to be one exciting summer!
This message was edited Apr 13, 2006 1:06 PM
Kent, you are a Godsend, thank you so, so much! I only discovered this thread yesterday, and late-comers or not, my old man and I will be jumping on the bandwagon this spring. I love to garden and haven't been able to fully enjoy it for years due to joint issues, and now I can! Plus our yard is riddled with an array of challenges (pesky root systems, underground pipes, hard clay, poor layout) which can all be circumvented via the strawbales. I will now be able to tend & pick my fruits, flowers and vegetables, and my husband, who doesn't know a weed from an heirloom tomato will no longer have to bear my wrath when he's mistakenly pulled up a precious plant I've grown from seed! WONDERFUL!!! God bless you, and everyone else here for sharing your vast, varied and valuable knowledge and experience!
Dixie
Welcome aboard, Dixie. Just like the Cross, there's always room for more!!!!
With the fish emulsion we used 16oz in a 20 gallon hose end sprayer set to 4TBS per gallon and just juged how it went onto our 42 bales. We did this 4 times. Now when you fill the sprayer with the 16 oz you need to fill the container with water then attach and spray away.
10-4, Melinda, thanks
Anyone use a bloodmeal solution?
pam
I think Big_Red used bloodmeal on his.
I've got Ammonium sulfate on mine.
I think I'll try the blood meal on a few others i'm going to pick up.
How much fish emulsion did I use? Enough to stink up an entire block. Seriously though, it stinks back there. Actually, it's easing up a little now but wow.
I just poored from the gallon, glop glop glop, and then watered it in. Did I mention that the dogs like to get into it and then bring that smell indoors? Oy vey.
Melinda and Big Red, you are both very sick, SICK I tells you.
You have straw-bale-itis. You are obsessive compulsive even. {grin} ;)
WARNING: You'll probably roll your eyes at the following:
But we need a LOGO!
I thought about this as a potential motto: "Bale Gardeners Do It In The Straw"
Get a nice color graphic designed with 3 bales (or just 1 bale) with say...tomatoes, peppers, and/or yellow squash, have the motto curved around the graphic and turn it into a nice heat transfer that you can put on a t-shirt, sweat shirt, etc
I think it would be awesome and man, would it start a conversation!
I love caps and a nice golf cap embroidered with a little bale with a plant would look great, too. Or a large embroidered logo on the back of a denim jacket would look great, too.
Well, there ya go. I've gone off the deep end for sure.
LOGO
I was thinking one of your great photos from last year's garden would be a great group graphic, Kent.
California's higher-rents mean production is often a little more than elsewhere in the country; but I do know a couple of folks who do those embroidered patches. Heat transfers tend to disintegrate quickly (bleh); if we did a nice two or three color graphic and had enough interest, we could get shirts screen printed and enjoy them for years. Yes, I'm rolling my eyes at your potential motto, and would love something I could wear around other middle-aged ladies *ahem* (heh!) Although it'd make a reasonable companion to my sweetie's Tee with the garden tools on it that says "Plays in the Dirt". Hm!
WATERING
We're watering in sulfate of Amonnia, and plan to swap over to fish juice next. There is a "descented" fish juice at OSH, but it's not got as much N.
Thanks to everyone who is posting how much of what to amend the bales with!
DUCKS
A pair of mallards stopped off in the yard today, and helped themselves to whatever was hanging out under where the bales we moved around t'other day had been (slugs? worms? good greens where the grass is long?) They didn't mind us bopping around, potting and taking photos, but when the ancient cat came out to see who this could be (curious but not stalking; they're as big as she is), they honked as if to say, "nope, let's not nest here then!" and took off. Like that egret the spent the day in January, I'm thinking there are delightful benefits to living this close to the marshy Bay shore!
Ru: The screen printing sounds good, also. More motto samples (some off the wall):
"Having a Bale of a Time!"
"The Farmer in the Bale"
"Bale Gardener - USA"
"Dirt? Bale Gardeners Don't Need No Steenkin' Dirt!"
"Got Bales?"
"I garden therefore I bale"
"Gardening in the Straw?" - suggested by NatureWalker
"Eat well from a bale"
This message was edited Apr 20, 2006 1:17 PM
Since it didn't rain yesterday, or (yet) today, even though it's grey and blustery, I gave our 16 bales a good soaking down just now, with their daily dose of N.
Sorry, I didn't get on line last night so I missed the last 2 days posts. I used the dried blood meal and just spread it down the middle of the bale(s) and watered it in.
One full cup per bale the first day, skipped a couple of days, and 1/2 cup per bale the next 3 days. It worked great for me!
I've kept a journal "Gardening in Straw" if anyone is interested. http://davesgarden.com/journal/d/t/Big_Red/2612/
Kent, like your idea of a logo!
This message was edited Apr 14, 2006 10:54 PM
This message was edited Apr 14, 2006 11:15 PM
Love the journal, Big Red! Very nice!
Then onions you added...did you add those to the bales that you'd planted the tomatoes into? Or into vacant bales? I'm thinking you could really do some great "multi-crop" bales with many different plants. (A tomato, a pepper, some onions, some lettuce maybe, etc?) Just wait til we REALLY start experimenting, eh?
Shoe.
Nice journal!
If I have wheat sprouting from my bales, that doesn't necessarily mean they've decomposed enough, does it? I never felt them heat up. Very tight bales. I also have three bales of mixed orchard grass, just for fun, and those are looser and are sprouting mushrooms.
A few of mine are beginng to sprout as well, but they aren't doing much decomposing, which I attribute to my lack of applying N and water. In a few weeks I may try to wedge an opening in a few and trowel in some soil and plant a few seeds, just as an experiment. Otherwise, the bales will have to grow fall crops or wait til next spring, but I'm OK with that. My well may be fine but I live in horror of running it dry and blood meal is very expensive. So I will be patient and see what develops.
Anyone around have chickens, rose? That's my next step...
Their poo, I mean. Not the actual chickens.