1st time bale gardeners - Who's trying it this year?, Part 2

Continues...

Whew, we needed that. My bales are doing okay, nothing great to report since last time. The strawberries are starting to slow down. I thought I had planted the kind that keep producing. Maybe I need to feed them again. Ya think? I am still new at this and am kind of feeling my way through it. The herbs and sugar snap peas are doing great but thats about it. I think next time I will go with more herbs and maybe flowers. That seems to me my nick.

Wow, I guess that everyone is busy with their gardens. My bales are just about done with the sugar peas, at least I am. Trying to decide what to put in them now. I think that I will add soil to the top once I get them planted again.

Hi- I also tried Strawbale Gardening this year.I made this album for all the people who didn't believe me when I told them I planted tomatoes and cucumber IN straw bales!
http://www.PictureTrail.com/gid20146952

Janie
Your bales must have been very loose to have broken down so fast? You had more breakdown in 2 months than I had in over a year. Mine were also arranged with the strings off the ground. I wonder if that had anything to do with it. I also see you had fertilizer on yours in the first pics. All I used was a thick smear of rabbit manure a few times on top of the bales then watered through it a few times a week.

This year I broke the bales down from last year and covered them with a thick layer of horse manure and sawdust. I planted in that and I have a beautiful stand of tomatoes. My husband also tucked in a couple of muskmelons and they are doing well.

Here is a question. My neighbor gave me some garlic sets this morning and said to plant them now and I'd have garlic in the spring. How deep of a bed do I need to plant them in?

My hay bales were pretty loose to begin with-but wasn't complaining because a friend of mine's neighbor gave them to me for FREE cause they were a little moldy and he couldn't give them to his horses.
I only put fertilizer on it once (12-12-12) and watered away. It did rain a lot this spring so that helped my water bill.
I did have one bale that was planted with green onions. I did get a few but for the most part I would say that they don't do well , for me, in the bales so garlic probably wouldn't do good either.

Caj... plant garlic cloves in dirt, not bales, in September... about 4-5 inches deep, base end down. They will likely send up green shoots before it freezes but they need to grow to establish a root system before winter. Mulch well after the first hard freeze, and in spring they will start to grow again, making bulbs by summer. Loose dirt is better for making larger bulbs.

Janie, your cucumber vines in the bales look like my winter squash in bales last year!

If my tomatoes are finished by then I will plant the garlic in my square raised bed. If the tomatoes are not finished by then, could i plant the garlic under the tomato plants? Will it grow slow enough to allow the tomatoes to finish in the same bed? This is a pic of my tomatoes a week or so ago. I have space in my flower bed turned vegetable garden but I don't think it would be deep enough.

Here is a pic of the part of the flower bed turned vegetable garden. I planted 55 onion sets this morning next to this squash plant but I still have room past the onions. It's the space I had my beans in. I realized this year that I should have been picking my beans when they were smaller and then they would have made a lot more beans.

You should have enough time after tomatoes and before a hard freeze to plant garlic. I've planted it in Asheville as late as October (zone 6a).

Then, the raised bed it is. Thanks.

One other tidbit... in a raised bed, you should plant garlic at least an inch, maybe 2", deeper since that bed will get colder than in-ground.

That makes sense. Thanks. I think I will also put on a new blanket of horse manure when I pull up the tomatoes. That should warm it up a bit. And it's not like I don't have an ample supply of the stuff. My "herd" is a very good producer of fertilizer.

Cajun, I planted my garlic last fall (late Oct.?) in a raised bed filled with compost and horse manure. I only planted them about 2" deep. They did just fine that way. I have them drying now.

Doug

Thanks, Doug. Now I won't worry. I tend to kill more seeds than I grow. But I never give up! LOL