Straw Bale Gardening - Part 3 - the saga continues

can't see your pics Salem

Same here.

Oops, try this one....



http://pictures.aol.com/ap/viewAlbum.do?user=guest&mode=guestView&shareInfo=esv4e%252B9w77lcj8AQUJN3ZmKWy8KxhRDr35hLx57tv7NWGd%252BBXiXp6w%253D%253D&albumId=25137.1066.1147828752175.3




This message was edited May 16, 2006 6:25 PM

Still can't.

Salem, when I click on your last link, this is what I get:

Well shoot, I dunno what the problem is. I'll keep working on it though. Thanks

k, I think I got it now.

http://pictures.aol.com/ap/viewAlbum.do?user=guest&mode=guestView&shareInfo=esv4e%252B9w77knLCavBXLPm4tthptOb622LUn89UWaO5lWGd%252BBXiXp6w%253D%253D&albumId=25137.1071.1147835622826.3

This message was edited May 16, 2006 8:16 PM

I saw them! Beautiful gardens Salem and you are so inventive making your own fountain - I would have to go to a 3 day craft class LOL

-Kim

Photobucket works very well for loading pictures up to forums like Davesgarden.
www.photobucket.com

Sheesh,
Jealous? Me? YESSSSSSSSSS
Looks great!
Kathy

Salem- nice photos of a nice garden. I am intrigued - please splain to me the drip irregation you are using? how is that bottle working with a what, yogurt container? My bales get so dry every day - that could really make a difference!

Salem, is there any way to enlarge he pictures I want to see up close? I tried clicking on them. Really nice garden.

Oh hey, thank you for the kind words.

After reading that tomatoes need consistent watering, and watering twice a day with the hose just wasn't cutting it, I knew I had to figure something out. I had all of these water bottles, which I am too lazy to take to the recycling center, so I just thought I'd put them to use.

These are the bottles with the pop up caps. I cut a large hole in the bottom, large enough to fill with water. I tried flipping upside down and hanging from the cage and from the stakes, but the bottle is heavy when filled, and doesn't stay put very well. I also didn't want the bottle to slide down the stake and smash my tomato babies.
I searched around the kitchen and came up with yoghurt containers out of the trash. They seem to be the perfect size to work with those particular bottles. I rinsed them out, cut off the very bottom, inverted them, and pushed them down next to the tomato plants, just enough so that it they wouldn't fall over. Next I inverted the bottle, filled from the hole, and adjusted the pop-up cap with just a fingernail to where it will drip steadily, then sat the bottle on the inverted yoghurt container, and voila! A high-tech drip irrigation system that's all the rage. ;)

I also experimented with some gallon milk jugs that I had onhand from using as a hot-cap. The bottoms were already cut off, cap left on, so I inverted those and pushed them down into the straw and amongst the plants, filled with water, and then pierced with a safety pin where the water would shoot out toward the plants, on each side. It works okay, but the water goes faster than I would like, so I just have to fill the jugs a couple of times a day. Oh, and all of the milk jugs make for an unattractive garden, but I tried to think of the results I might get, and just try to overlook it.

Oh Jnette, as far as enlarging the photos, try the slideshow button. I noticed that I also had to double click on the photos to enlarge them. If there is a particular one you'd like to see, let me know which one/ones and I will upload them here.

Here is one of the tomatoes and water bottles.

And another. The tomatoes were looking wilted when I first put the bottles out. (I transplanted these two days ago) This morning, they look hydrated and happy.



This message was edited May 17, 2006 10:05 AM

Here is that sad looking big boy this morning. What a difference a day makes.

Brandywine yesterday before water bottle.

Brandywine, this morning. Major difference there.

Ingenious system. And doesn't it give you the best feeling when you can recycle and save money? I love to find new uses for old things. My husband says I am cheap but I prefer to think of myself as frugal and inventive! LOL Your tomatoes look great. I think it is still too cool for my garden to do much. I have blooms onmy tomatoes and one of my cucumbers but the plants look positively shameful. I hope the man from the newspaper holds off coming until the weather warms up a bit.
Something is still eating away at my plants, too. I have dusted several times with 5% sevin dust but it has just managed to slow the bugs down a bit. I'll keep trying. C'est La Vie. LOL

Very good idea, Salem

Cajun, I am having a terrible problem with rolly polly bugs in my bales. Have you noticed those little monsters hanging out in your bales?
Kathy

Salem your plants are beautiful. Are you having the same hot, hot weather we are in Eastern Washington? Over 90 the last couple of days. The tomatoes seem to love it. So far my plants haven't wilted, knock on wood, but they aren't as big as yours either.

Kathy, I seem to be a couple of weeks behind everyone else. I'm just getting the mushrooms. No pill bugs, but, I have ants. terrible ants.

BTW Salem, did you start your plants from seed? I do and mine don't seem to be as husky as others but I don't have a heated greenhouse either. Not heated until now anyway. LOL

Jeanette

The plants I started from see, are still smallish, except for the ones in the soil bed. Those are just thriving now. I also burned a bunch of my seedlings with fertilizer. Those larger mater plants in the bales were store-bought - 1.99 each from Bi-Mart.

Salem, for next year, you might make note of Carolyn's way to grow tomatoes from seed. It is very close to the top of the forum on tomatoes. I put some in a couple of weeks ago just to see if hers came out better than mine and I have to admit that they probably will be when they get to be the same age.

If you are interested and can't find it let me know and I will look for it for you.

Jeanette

It's a sticky at the top of the tomato forum: can't miss it...

You're right.

Wow you guys, I saw the yellow on the first bud on one of my tomatoes today!! Our weather has gone from 90+ degrees all last week to thunder and lightning and 60 + degrees today and all this next week. Those tomatoes really do like the heat don't they.

Hmystyle, I replaced the Early Girl that was not doing well with another Early Girl. I think maybe when I planted it I broke the stem or something. Anyway, I have 2 EGs a Beef Steak, 2 Sweet Millions and a Campbells and would you believe, the EGs are doing the best. Altho, maybe I shouldn't say that because the Campbells is the one with the bud.

I also have 2 20 gallon muck buckets with tomatoes planted in wall-o-waters in them. I do believe one has Sweet Millions and I think the other is Beef Steak. Will be fun to see how they do. First year for them.

I think the tomatoe seedlings I planted first were not planted deep enough, and the top couple inches of the bales seem to dry out quickly. I replaced a few of them with bigger seedlings, in the cold frame they got bigger and hardier, and now that the cold front has passed them seem to be happy. I think I was over-anxious to plant and didn't wait till the sprouts were big enough to be planted deeper!

Salem, I borrow your idea - hope you don't mind. Today I got out a bunch of milk jugs, filled them with manure tea, poked a couple holes in them and put one on each bail (till I ran out of jugs). I figure this way the plants will stay moist and be fed at the same time. Now when I water the bales I can refill the jugs and let them drip away. I found out that by tightening and loosening the caps on the jugs, I can regulate how fast the water comes out!

Jnette- I'm so jelly! No flowers here yet!

Oh hey, hmstyl, great idea about the cap. The ones I used had already had the bottoms cut off to be used as hot caps. We did just empty another gallon milk jug, however, and I am going to try that. Thanks

It never ceases to amaze me how cleaver people are. That is wonderful hymstyl. I haven't tried it but can see how it would work. btw, I love the tips sent in to the Family Handyman magazine. That is what I mean, with hymstyl and people being so cleaver.

I also find this method very interesting and am giving it a whirl. To those who are having problems --it does work but even an old book I have mentions the possibility of herbicide tainted bales so if problems persists maybe that is the culprit.

The book I have is published in Great Britain in 1967 entitled "Tomatoes for Everyone-Including Ring Culture and Growing on Straw Bales". It was written by Frank Allerton. It shows 2 pictures of tomatoes growing in straw bales in a commercial greenhouse and the plant is LOADED with tomatoes.

One of the additional benefits he mentions is that in a greenhouse as the straw breaks down carbon dioxide gas is given off and that also benefits the plants.

Here is how he prepares the bales.

Water for 10 to 12 days with 1 gallon of water. Cover with plastic to prevent loss by evaporation in sunny weather. (Ignore mold, not harmful.) He also has them sitting on a two inch deep trough of plastic but this is in a green house, not necessary outside.

Now this is where you have to improvise with products available nowadays or just follow tried and true methods given in the previous posts:

Spread 1 lb. nitrochalk, 1 lb. superphosphate, 1 lb. nitrate of potash, 4 oz. epsom salts, and 3 oz. sulphate of iron on top of bale. Water in with 1 gallon of water. Repeat in 1/2 hour with another gallon of water. Cover for a few days keeping bales moist by sprinkling with water. Before planting make sure the composting process has cooled down as too much heat could hurt transplants.

He then puts 2 bottomless shallow container on top and fills with soilless mix and plants BUT THE COMMERCIAL PICTURES IN THE BOOK just show the plants right in the straw where I presume just enough potting mix has been added to plant in. (I believe the containers are used so the plants are not going into coldish straw and will produce earlier.) If growing outside skip the containers as they dry out too quickly though he does say you can encircle the bales with plastic if this a problem.

He recommends starting to feed 2 weeks later. (1/4 # nitrochalk every 2 weeks for a total of 3 or 4 times) ALTERNATE with liquid feeding (use a high potash tomato liquid fertilizer).

The interesting thing is he says that almost as spectacular results can be achieved by using 'straw wads' of 6 to 8 inches rather than the whole bale. I was thinking that a 1/2 bale would be interesing to try.

Unfortunately, as mentioned above weedkillers can be a problem in some bales. Bummer.

This message was edited May 22, 2006 9:37 AM

Cowpea, that is interesting. What do you mean by half a bale? Do you mean breaking it in half and turning it so you are planting straight down in the leaf, the flat side? Because by planting 2 tomatoes to a bale you are getting a plant to a half a bale. Right?

I have 5 plants in straw in a hoophouse, but the hh doesn't have covered ends so it does not get overly hot in there. They don't seem to be doing any different than the 2 outside the plastic of the hh.

Does that make sense? I don't find that the strawbales dry out that much even if I don't get them watered every day. But, I am using a watering wand on the hose, not a gallon jug like it sounds they used. However, maybe by using the hose, I might be watering the nutrients away???

Jeanette

This message was edited May 22, 2006 2:04 PM

Jeanette, you're right I did not explain that corrrectly--I guess you have to peel off 1/4 --that would be the 6 to 8 inches he is talking about and then you get 4 plants per bale. Or split the bale in half the long way but don't know if that is possible. Cowpea

I consider it just something fun to try --obviously today's methods of greenhouse growing utilize perlite bags, etc. not straw. Outside though if you have nematodes this could be really helpful.

Cowpea, I find the strawbales helpful in that I cannot get down close to the ground. Therefore, they bring the plants up where I can reach them. And so far, the only weeding I have had to do is knock the mushroom/toadstools off with my cane.

Not so with my flowerbeds that are in the ground. So far I have spent 4 hours weeding and got about a quarter of it done.

Cowpea: I enjoyed your excerpt from the 1967 book, especially the "straw wads" portion.

I wonder if you could use some plastic milk crates, or something similar, and break the bale up into 3rds, perhaps, and put each "wad"/section into the crate. You then have a much lighter plant module, so to speak, that could be moved around more easily, etc. The crate would do a great job of holding the "wad" together. After a garden season, the "old" straw could be left in the crate, dried out and reused next season. Some new straw "wadding" could be added if needed. This would probably work better for those who garden on a smaller scale or have limited space.

Salem: good job on your watering system, pics, and instructions

All: Well, folks, I have replaced about 90% of my garden with new transplants. It was looking awful. The cold night temps the first 2 weeks of May did a number on my plants. Then we had a hail storm that added insult to injury.

The new plants seem to be doing much better at the same stage and I'm feeling alot better. I was really getting frustrated.

And this was about the time the topic of the herbicide residue in some bales came up, so I chewed on that notion for awhile, but came to the conclusion that it was the temps that did me in.

I talked to some gardeners at church on Sunday and their traditional gardens were also looking very anemic. Plants just sitting there and not doing much but turning yellow.

I'll give another update in about a week.

Anyone need any more bales? I've got a few in my pasture- lol!

Berrygirl, that is an awfully pretty picture but that looks like Hay!! LOL

Jeanette

berrygirl - it would be awesome to grow some of the giant pumpkins on top of one of your bales! What a spectacle that would be! Lucky you!

Jeanette,
I know its hay- lol!

hmstyl,
That would be a sight to see!! I do wish they could stay in the field as I love the looks of them. Unfortunately, they'll be taken away soon and stored in a barn.

So I am at work and a lady I work with says her gardens are so full she is going to plant her tomatoes in bales. I just stared at her. She says she does it all the time, no prep, no nothing, cracks a hole and puts in her tomato plant. I told her mine were being prepped/decompose a little before planting and she stared at me:) I can't wait to see hers. It was nice not to have to explain the whole idea. She just asked what I was going to put in mine - squash/melons.

-Kim

Kim, that will be fun to watch hers versus yours. You will have to keep us posted.

Jeanette