How is everybody doing/ I see your names on other forums but this one seems to have been quiet for a while or I have quit getting updates.My veges are doing good. My eggplant really loves the bales. I have white eggplant never tried it before but heard it was good. Almost ready to pick. Getting some good tomatoes, cukes, squash and zucchini.When is it time to start with the fall things? Have not seen any plants in the stores yet. Deanna
Straw Bale Gardening (Part 15)
Well, here's the take for Friday. I'm still not sure how to handle the squash now, but hopefully I'll get a clue :)
Hi Guys,
Yes, it has been quiet. Think everybody is out picking their gold mines? Cat, did you actually grow those this summer??? Wow, it is amazing the difference in the different parts of the country isn't it? I doubt that we have a season long enough to get one of those punkins.
Russ, are your melons producing? I have tons of blossoms on mine but they just dry up. No melons. I don't understand it. I even poked my finger in some of them to pollinate them.
Wonder how Bronx Boy is doing? He better get those boys hopping with all of those plants.
Donna how are you doing over there? Haven't heard anything from you either.
Jeanette
Jeanette;
I feel real bad. The melon stayed real small, then all of a sudden it was gone. We were looking forward to some of those little ones too.
I should not have planted them in the bales. The peppers are finally coming along but not doing as good as the ones in the ground. The tomatoes are starting to bear. I have picked 2 already and none off the ones in the dirt. But both the ones in the dirt and those in the bales are good strong plants and are about 4 ft. tall. and have a lot of blosoms and little green maters. I planted cukes in the dirt and run them up a section of fence. I have been picking some of them, but they were suposed to be straight 8s, But they are only getting 5 - 6 inches long. It may be the lack of rain. Watering isn't as good as a good rain.
I don't know if it would work or not on mellons, But some people use blosom set. I have no idea if it would work or not.
My mouth wasn't watering yet for some of those small melons, but I was anxious. I may have to begg for more seeds for next year.
I could trade for some sweet potato plants, hmmmm, please. I could start them indoors first, so they would have a good start first. But then if you don't get any to bear either, guess were out of luck! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~`Russ
But why aren't they setting fruit Russ??? I can't imagine why they wouldn't. I have 2 plants in one bale so wouldn't you think they would pollinate good? I even saw a honey bee on one this morning. Who would we ask?
You are certainly welcome to some seeds for next year. In fact I will send them soon. But I sure was hoping to collect some from my own fruit.
You know what Russ? I wonder if those were some of the geneticly engineered seeds and the seeds won't germinate. But, they did germinate. They just won't bear fruit. I am going to do some research on that.
See, they are doing that so that everybody has to buy new seeds from the corporations. That is why gardeners have to preserve heirloom seeds. Better start saving those tomato, squash, cuke etc. seeds.
Jeanette
I hope were wrong on thinking this. but there could be something to it.
You may have a point too. maybe we should be saving our heirloom seeds. I just remembered last year a friend shared some giant pumpkin seeds with several of us here in town. Mine started to grow got big thick vines and good looking leaves had lots of blosoms, then the plants started turning yellow and just dried up. I laid blame on cut worms but maybe it wasn't. There is a seed saver place here in IA. Maybe that is where I should get seed so I can save what I like as well.
Oh I Thought I had some voluntier Cukes come back, But I had to rethink when I found a muskmelon on a vine. One big problem tho is I did plant cukes next to it. That is not usually a good thing. I also had a Butternut squash come back as a voluntier. It is also in the same vacinity. This is going to be interesting, huh. So far there are 2 squash on that vine and more blosoms. I will be trying some bale garden next year as well but more for the tomatoes than any thing else. I didn't try the cukes in bales, but next year I will. I may also try making a raised garden just to see if That will work any better for me. That way Barb could even help. It would also help my back.
I do hope maybe the weather has something to do with the blosoms drying up. I know that just watering doesn't get the same results for me as some good rains. It has been dry this summer. That could have something to do with my small straight 8 cukes.
I would like to hear what you find out on the melons, also hoping that they start setting fruit.~~~`Russ
Russ, I didn't spend any time on it but just for kicks, google genetically engineered seeds. See what you think of just glancing thru it.
Jeanette
Jnette wrote;"Cat, did you actually grow those this summer??? "
I'm surprised, too. I never expected them to ripen so soon. I'm going to plant more, and hope they are ready for Halloween.
My melon plants were the last things to set fruit consistently. I did find two nestled in the tops of the bales, but in general, they were way behind the squash and stuff. Don't know how long it will be until they ripen. Probably next week, along with the Green and Black tomatoes, since I'll be away.....
Jnette, Sounds to me we may have some super weeds on our hands to deal with in near future huh. But the poor bees and and other benificial insects. Kind of sounds like that may be what is confusing the bees.
I went out a while last night and pulled some weeds around the cukes in my lower, or rather back garden. I was surprised by some rather large cukes. I picked them last night. This morning I checked the garden space in front, found more cukes. Now I have too many to use up for slicing, that we eat as fast as we can. Now you know what I have to do tonight, after it cools down a bit. Yup you guessed it. Heat up the kitchen. That's ok they will taste good this winter. I promised Barb I would make these up as dill pickles. I like them too but my fav, is bread & butter. It's only 96 out, but all the moisture is gone. It feels like you are by the door of a blast furnace. That's why I will wait till tonight. Think I should get 4 or 5 qt from this batch.
They are trying to tell us that the next 2 days we can expect rain????
I bet it misses us again. I'll have to water again tonight
Truly amazing Catmad.
Russ, I would like your B&B recipe when you have time. Hang in there. We have had over a week of no less than 96 degrees, with a couple triples thrown in and now it is raining huge drops. Because I put the sprinkler on. Won't last long tho.
Jeanette
O my, I just use the method of a little of this and a little of that, It's kind of burried in some grey matter. But I will try OK?
But tonight is going to be the dill. But I'll get on it and write it down. I generally go by if my mouth starts watering, thats just right. Wierd huh?
That is kind of the way my mother tought me.. I was the 5th of 6. and the (Baby) for 7 years. So when my younger brother was on his way, mom didn't realize it. She got sick and had to spend all summer in the hospital. so being the youngest; Dad assigned me to take care of the chickens and to the cooking. At the time we did not have a gas nor an electric stove You guessed it. The old wood burner. And I baked, heat water to scald the chickens that I killed and butchered. And nobody complained about what I fixed and nobody got sick. so I guess that quite an accomplishment for a 7 year old. Nobody would dare assigne that to a 7 year old today! Oh and I did better than my older sister she made a cake that really looked nice. Only she missread the amount of soda used a table spoon instead of a teaspoon. It took the chickens a week to eat that cake, after it made my oldest brother gasp for air.
I will admitt I did shinge my eye brows and lashes a couple times, when I thought there weren't any coals.Guess I was very lucky.
Well stand by, but don't hold your breath, as it may take me a while to get the amounts written down. Never thought of anybody possibly wanting that old of a receipe. But then our girls like it, as they always ask for a few jars. Any way hang on I'll try.~~~~~~`Russ
I'm just trusting that you have good taste Russ. LOL
Jeanette
Jeanette, We did have a slightly cooler day today, but no wind , so muggy, even without much humidity.
I was glad for the firefighters to not have any wind. It is really smoky and hurts my eyes. When i came back from Omak this afternoon (had to get my new lenses for after the cataract surgery on left eye), I could plainly see lots of flames. But so far still on the east side of the Okanogan river. I tried to call a couple of my friends and also the fellow who has worked for me for more than 20 years. All i got was the busy signal, don't know if that means they had to move out or if maybe the lines might have burned or be down. No rain predicted for here and i sure hope no T & L.
Donna
Donna, so glad to hear from you. I have been thinking of you the last couple of days but just couldn't seem to find time to write. Sorry. I am sure glad the fires are across the river from you. The Okanogan is a fairly good sized river, lets hope it is big enough for a fire break.
T&L are predicted for us unfortunately. Hope it isn't dry lighttning. We have 2 fires going here but so far they are several miles from us. Just hope we don't get any wind.
Keep us posted. Hope your friends and neighbors are ok.
Jeanette
We had a really nice rain yesterday with some T & L, received about
.5 of an inch of rain. The Tunk fire is 80% contained now. Actually it is raining again this morning, and believe me I am not complaining. Didn't have to irrigate yesterday.
Has anyone tried growing beets in the bales?
Wonderful Donna, glad to hear it.
BB, have been wondering about you. I can't imagine growing beets in bales, but try it. How is the produce business going?
Donna, glad you're all right..ain't rain wonderful?!
Foggy
Aahhhhh, Rain is wonderful. We had T&L with it; lots of it. When I checked the guage this morning, we had nearly 3&1/4inches. All the pepper leaves have perked up, and the sweet potatoes must have grown another 2 or 3 inches. :o) Just finished processing 8 quarts of Dill Pickles. And yup when I looked out in the garden again, There were more cukes ready. I think I'll take some to give away. lol Gary at the Gen. store ( or The Barn), would like some for salads. He serves supper on friday eve. So I guess I would still get to eat my share, Heh heh my smugg little grinn. That is usually DW and my, night out. Of course we don't miss fri mornings very often either. He has biscuits and gravy Uummmmm Yummy. Of course that's when we catch up on what has happened in the neighborhood, and solve all the world problems :o) OK???
Russ, sounds heavenly. Love those biscuits and gravy. Bet the neighborhood news is fun too. LOL
Jeanette
Hi Jnette:
I've been doing well. Between my regular job and the market, I've been pretty busy. Luckily with all the rain we've been getting, I have been saving a lot a time from not having to water.
Here's a market pic
It wouldn't enlarge, but it sure looks nice. Good for you!!
Jeanette
Hi all,
It's been a while since I visited. Actually I have been hooked on kayak fishing so have been spending way too much time there.
It is off to Haiti on 9 August so I am busy getting things ready. Be gone a month. I say this only to have you pray for our team..
This is why I am interested in bale gardens. I can teach my brothers and sisters to build a box and tamp straw into it to form a sort of bale. Then cook it and plant it and water it.
Much of the soil where our sister church is located has been salted from hurricane storm serge. The box bales can be set on the ground and vegies can be produced.
I am introducing worm composting toilets. They can use the worm castings for fertilizer and worm tea. Everything we grow there is organic because the big corporations can't make money on altered seed and fertilizer. I do take some fertilizer in to use to start the plants but will switch to worm castings when we start producing them.
I will take a picture of my home bale garden tomorrow and show you my progress so far.
I started everything late so I don't have the progress to show. My beans have tons of blossoms and the tomatoes are blooming like mad. We have such a long growing season here in Oregon that I tend to get slack about getting started. Next year I am going to start in February getting ready and planting in April.
I drip water all the bales. some bales I set up with deep dripers and surface dripers. This week I added a fertilizer injector that fertilizes along with the water. Right now I use 20/20/20 water soluble fertilizer. When that is gone I am going to switch to worm tea.
Has any one used worm tea for fertilizer?
Well until I get my picture.
In Christ, his servant, Paul.
Hi again,
When I return from Haiti would You like to see some pictures or do you think it might take up too much space? I would love to share what we are doing.
In Christ, His servant, Paul.
Paul, don't know about the others but I would love to see them. If they don't want to look they can just skip over them. I would think it very interesting.
BTW, how many kayaks did you catch fishing? LOL
Please share your pictures of the bale gardening and how you have installed your drip watering and fertilizing too.
Jeanette
All: I've been away too long. Extra busy at work plus my daughter's softball team was playing in their softball tournament. They won the regular season and the tournament. Go girls!!
I have been taking a quick glance at the thread and enjoying all the conversation.
Here's today's tomato harvest after my mama and a friend of the family got some. The missus wants to do a canning or two.
It's tomato sandwiches just about every day. I love them so.
Nothing left in my garden but tomatoes and peppers and the trombocino that just keeps on growing and growing.
Paul: welcome back and definitely take some photos of your trip to Haiti. We'll also keep your team in our prayers. Post while you're gone if you get the chance.
Kent
Yes Paul, some photos of your Haiti trip would be very interesting. Have a good and safe trip.
Donna
Kent, your tomatoes are beautiful. I'll bet you are buying the stores out of bacon. LOL
Russ, I think we have a hybrid weed we are growing. So sorry.
Donna, hear you guys are getting rain at last. That is great. My daughter in Seattle says the rain is ruining the flowers. Guess that is all they have had for quite a while. That is unusual even for Seattle in July.
Jeanette: nope, no bacon yet on my tomato sandwiches; I just haven't taken the time to cook any up, but since you mentioned it...
Kent
Jeanette,
I've been lurking on this thread for a while, but I planted everything in the dirt this spring. I'm thinking of some bales next year for weed control.
I'll share my mother's bread & butter recipe--it's probably not been around as long as Russ's recipe, but we all love it. I used it for squash this year too, not just cumcumbers. I bet Kent's trombocino would be perfect for pickling, since there is so much neck! The attached photo is B&B straight-necked yellow squash.
The recipe is for quart jars--made 6 quarts, since that was the size of her boiling water processor.
MAMA’s BREAD & BUTTER PICKLES
5 qts. Med. Cucumbers sliced ¼-inch thick
8 small white onions, sliced
1 large green pepper, sliced
1 large sweet red pepper
1/2 c coarse salt
Cracked ice/ice water
Mix above ingredients thoroughly and let stand 2-3 hours.
Drain and place in non-reactive pot.
PICKLING MIXTURE
5 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp ground cloves
2 Tbsp mustard seed
2 Tbsp celery seed
5 c. vinegar
Combine remaining ingredients and pour over cucumbers. Bring to boiling point but DO NOT BOIL. Stir with wooden spoon until cucumbers have yellowish-green color.
Fill sterilized pint or quart jars. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. Remove and cool. Check the seals and store in a dry, dark place. Yields about 6 quarts
Thank you dreaves, they look wonderful. Especially since you can use anything to make them. I'll try them soon.
Good to have you on board. Hope to have you strawbaling next year. I can't do anything else with my soil so this is perfect for me. Also, with my arthritis having the fruit up where I can reach it is great.
Thanks again so much.
Jeanette
Jeanette; Well I just got done with 12 qt. of Bread & Butter pickles. It wasn't easy trying to measure while shaking and dumping in the ingreadients. But I started by washing the cukes in warm water and a little dish detergent. then rinseing them. cut off the blossom end and the stem end. and sliced them into a 6 gal crock. I had about 4 to 4-1/2 gal of slices. to that I added
6 garlic cloves sliced
10 large onions _yellow bermuda Sliced to make slivers.
12 de seeded sweet banana peppers. Sliced
2 cups of canning salt
1 tsp alum
mix with the peppers onions and cuke slices and cover with a bag of crushed ice and and about 2 qt of cold water. let stand 4 or 5 hours. Over night would be fine, if you wanted to do the canning in the morning.
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I used two glass sauce pans to bring to a boil the spice and vinegar mix.
15 cups vinegar. I used a little of both ,cider and white
2 cups brown sugar
10 cups white sugar
4 Tbl spoons mustard seed
1 tsp ground ginger
4 tsp turmeric
4 tsp celery seed
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
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I add this seperately
1 Tbl spoon coriander seed
1 tsp pepper corns
wrap in a cloth and mash with a mallot.
put broken up seeds in a coffee filter and tie shut with a bread twist tie.
Use some of the vinegar to boil the pepper corn and coriander. and let stand until you are ready to cook the rest of the spice mix.
use that vinegar in with the rest. discard the coffee filter and seed mix.
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Drain and rinse lightly The cucumber mix.
Pack into sterilized jars
pour, or ladle hot spice and vinegar mix over cucumbers
leaving 1/2" head room
Adjust sterilized lid on jars
Place in a canning kettel of boiling water, making sure that the water covers the lids when all jars are in the hot water bath.
Heat at a slow boil for 15 to 20 min.
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Taste improves with at least a week shelf time.
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This gave me 12 qt. xxxBut I always have extra jars ready just in case.
As I said before I don't use precise measures they are aproximate measures. But very close.
Grand mother used dried ginger root and cinnamon sticks. and used the rag and hammer method on those as well, and making sure to take out the little strings or long fibers of the ginger, before puting it in the vinegar. So the recipe has changed some over the years.
And it is a little toward ones taste. My sister was taught the same recipe. but I always thought hers were more, on the sour side.
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You can sterilize your jars one of two ways.
1 wash in hot soapy water and rinse. and place in the pan of boiling water you will be useing for the hot water bath.
2 Wash in hot soapy water rinse and dry and place them right side up on a cookie sheet in the oven heat at 225 degrees for 15 min.
either way will do the job.
Wow I sure was glad a neighbor asked if I had any cucumbers to spare. Went out to the row that is on a trellis ( cattle panel). and picked half a grocery bag for her.
I'm hoping to get a bunch of the little ones to make sweet pickles next.
That is kind of hard to do though with the straight 8s
I picked 4 tomatoes today, so they are starting, but on a couple plants I'm getting a lot of end rot. I also have one bale that some large, black ants have made their home and it seems they like tomatoes.
I will have to spray that, I'm not sure if sevin will work on an established ant nest.
Thanks Russ. That was a lot of work typing it up for me. I appreciate it. Now I am going to have to try yours and dreaves both. It was really super of both of you to send them to me.
I'm looking forward to canning them up. Thanks.
BTW, are the tomatoes with the end rot in the bales? I always heard that was from irregular watering. Not sure.
Jeanette
Yes those plants are but I have another in the dirt that has a few with end rot. but not like that one. it is also real close to the ants
I think Gardens Alive sells stuff for Blossom End Rot. BER. You might google them and see. That is a real pain to lose the whole end off of every tomato.
I doubt that the ants have anything to do with it.
Jeanette
No I think your right about the ants not causing the BER. But those that have a hole in the side and has one going in and two coming out just might . LOL
With just one or two plants having the problem. I probably won't do anything as I have probably around 30 tomato plants. and those two are the san marino, not a very big tomato. I had thought they might be more like the Roma. I had planed on using them for tomato sauce and or salsa.
Well I picked 5 this morning so they will be comming on strong soon.
But I will be ready. I have plenty jars down in the root cellar. I think I still have enough flats, and the rings I can take off of the pickles, if I run low.
I have dozen or more plants that will have the tastie, larger, maters.
So I'm pretty sure we will have plenty and will probably be giving a lot away too. Which is something I like doing.
My tomato plants are the biggest they've ever been. One plant got a tomato on it real early on and I just picked it and ate it for dinner. That plant still has a lot of green tomatoes on it. It's the smallest of the 4. The others are huge with tons of flowers but no tomatoes, at least that I can see.
We have not had a whole ton of sunny weather and very little *warm* weather.
My bale with the small melons (growing but no fruit yet) has collapsed but not the others. Are they supposed to collapse or does that not matter? I thought maybe the fact the others didn't collapse meant they weren't decomposing enough. I have fed with vege fertilizer but nothing else.
The tomatoes keep growing. Is it time for them to stop putting out green and start putting out fruit?
At what point do I stop watering every day? Some unusual summer rains have been doing my watering for me, but today was warm and sunny and so maybe we're going to get our one month of sunny weather after all. (Usually we get 2 months of sunny weather with one month being pretty warm.)
Gwen
Gwen: collapsing bales are normal. It depends on how much weight is on them, how densely packed they are, etc. Let'em do their thing.
I only water my bales for about 15 seconds/bale. That has been plenty for me.
As for the tomates, they'll come around.
Sounds like you're doing a great job.
Kent
Gwen, if you have been reading the posts from Russ and I, you will find that those melons are not going to have any fruit. We have decided they are hybrid weeds. Genetically engineered seeds. If you google that you will probably come to the same conclusion. Those seeds are the ones I sent you and I sent Russ some also. I sent some to my daughter in Federal Way and she is having the same thing happening.
Good plants, lots of blossoms, but they drop. No fruit. I would think I was doing something wrong except that we all are having the same problem.
Jeanette
Jeanett; I had a strange thing happen, again this year.
Last year I had a volunteer butternut Squash, that gave me several Sq.
The same thing this year, I got three from it. and then the vine died.
But then I also had several other volunteer muskmelons.. There are three good sized melons on those. I think I said this before but--- they are right next to some of my cucumbers. ????? The cucumbers taste fine, I am wondering if the melons will though. These are of course in dirt. Don't think that would happen in bales LOL.
Now I'm not feeling quite as bad about loosing that lone, small melon, since everyone else is having similar problems. Barb was really looking forward to having some that we could eat all of it at one meal.
Don't get me wrong, we could eat a whole regular sized one. We normaly don't. That is where zip loc bags come into play.