2009 - 1st time bale gardeners - Part 2

Sorry about messing you up Kent. Just wanted to see if you were awake. LOL,

Beautiful cucumber Helen. My favorite, right alongside tomatoes.

Jeanette

Jeff Your garden is so neat and pretty! I bet those tomatoes are really strong and will bear a lot of fruit , just look how straight and tall they are! Congrats on a beautiful garden. Believe me I am taking notes from every body! My next attempt I will be more careful about spacing and not overcrowding.

Making holes in my straw bales...I didn't have a eufaulatum".It must have been thrown away Grrrrrr But craftsman to the rescue.. Planted 8 brussel sprouts..6 Cukes..5 Egg plant...7 Peppers (5 green & 2 red)

Taters looking good..These are in mulched leaves & straw...
Forgot to say..I needed to water these more too..To get them started better..






This message was edited Jun 3, 2009 10:15 PM

These are in straw...I think I should have been watering them more..Been checking better lately..I was scared I would cause them to rot if they were to wet..But when checking the straw was dry around the potato set....I will do a better job of fluffing the straw..Been finding clumps of hard straw.. We will still have a good crop at harvest..I'm ready for New Potato's in milk gravy..Muuuuummmm

tubby: glad you had the Craftsman handy! :-)

I think Nebraska has passed an ordinance that you have to get certified before you use an official Eufaulatum, but that may just apply to commercial dealers, and not home gardeners.

tubby: I see we're on at the same time. I'm off tomorrow and Friday, so I can sleep late in the morning.

I haven't looked on a map, but how far is Ames from Omaha?

I was stationed at SAC HQ for a couple months way back in 1981.

Flew in on Friday and had a blizzard on Saturday! Windchill around 50 below, if I remember correctly. That's chilly! :-)

This message was edited Jun 3, 2009 11:16 PM

Kent I'm off every day..LOL
Retired by cancer...

Omaha is 35 Minutes..Offutt Air base (SAC HQ) is close to an hour drive from Ames...
Ames is 7 miles from Fremont which is west of Omaha..Omaha gets closer to Fremont all the time..In 1981 I would have said its close to 45 or 50 minutes drive time...

Use to be a lot more corn fields ect..Between here & Omaha

tubbytee, Craftsman what? Kent's easy. You gotta draw me a picture. I know, I know, you posted a picture. I do not recognize that particular tool. Ok, looked again. It's the way you have it sitting. It's a drill with what appears to be a door knob hole maker. BUT, it looks too big for any door knob I ever saw. So, I'm back to square one.

Figured out the Craftsman part, now what?

Jeanette

Jeanette it is a hole saw..They come in various size's...This was already set up ready to use.. I was making squirrel feeders & coffee can bird house's..

It worked quite well for making planting holes, since I don't have permit that would allow me to use the eufaulatum....LOL
I must file for permit to use the "Socketuem" ..We always have trouble with that cuke & squash beetle..Thriving plant one day dead the next..Very disheartening to see a beautiful acorn squash or a nice cuke vine shrivel up & die over night

Tubby

Tubby: Ok, now I know where you are. If I'd known your were that close back then, I'd dropped in on you.

Jeanette: we've seen folks use chain saws, hands, trowels, Eufaulatums, and now hole saws!

A very enterprising group we have! :-)

Did I do something wrong? I was able to make the holes with my hands with no trouble. My yellow scallop squash is about to fall out of the side of the bale. My bales seem to be falling apart very quickly.

Betty

Dropping in to let you know our second year with strawbales is different.
Last year, I had annuals and herbs as companion plants.
Well.. this year, DH don't want any 'sissy' plants next to his tomatoes :D

I had herbs and 'scabiosa' coming back up from last year's decomposed bales!

Happy to see many new strawbale gardeners.

Thank you Kent.
~Jaye

Hi Jaye nice to hear from you. How have you been?

Betty

All is well here Betty, except for the heat and mosquitoes. It's getting into the 90's.

Hope Kent can answer you. Good luck on your strawbales!

I think the difference on how easy/difficult cutting the holes are is how much they have decomposed. Sally says hers were very easy, but in the next sentence she says the bales were falling apart. Decomposed. When Kent first started this, he was telling us to take a stiff spatula and wedge the bale apart and put the roots down then push it back together.

Now we are wanting holes to put soil in. There is a big difference.

Jeanette

Lotta difference in straw and hay . also , how solid they were baled, what kind of hay , ect. sally

Betty: you did just fine. Jeanette's right on target; the more decomposed the bales are the easier it is to make a crack.

And, as digger said, some bales are tighter than others. Plus, you've got the hay/grass bales, which I have no experience with. I'm sure they have their own characteristics.

Jaye: welcome back for Round 2! LOL about the "sissy" plants being persona non grata this year! :-)

I have coastal , and it broke down in two weeks. If I stepped on it , it would go to the ground , no doubt , so I add compost to the top , around plants . digger

Wow Digger Sally!!! What is Coastal? What does that mean? I have been working with mine for a month now and even the chainsaw didn't work. I also tried the door hole maker the other day and it didn't work either. They are hay.

I finally got my DH to take a 6" round metal tube and with a 2x4 and a hammer he pounded a hole out of them. Actually smashed the tube before he was done. Not much left of it.

Jeanette

Coastal is another burmuda that withstands heat and does well in dryer climates . It isn't for lawns , but great for livestock . We socked the nitrogen to it for four days and it heated to 130 . Some of my bales were so hot I couldn't get my hands in there . I planted some toms that cooked and had to be replaced . I'd like to have a bale of alfalfa on my porch just to smell , but it is'nt grown here . Too hot and dry. It isn't course like straw and the finer leaves break down faster . digger

Hey Sally, get some seed and grow some in a bucket on your porch!!

google alfalfa seed.

Jeanette

Jeanette can you get your hands on a Sawzall.I can't believe that would not work for making holes..Of any size...I have this one ..Love it..


Copied from sears on line add..

Milwaukee 6536-21 13 Amp Orbital Super Sawzall Recip Saw
120V 13.0 Amps 0-3000 SPM. Orbital action selector w/ 1-1/4" blade stroke. Quik-lok blade clamp. Smooth counter-balanced mechanism. Precision ball & roller bearings ...

Tubby

Well, Tubby, I did get my tomatoes planted this year. Maybe next year I will try that. Thanks.

Jeanette

Jnette, why didn't I think of seed . I'll have the deer on my porch , won't have to haul them so far .Hmmmm , digger

Digger... Now you know good and well if that deer came up on your porch it wouldnt be able to leave because you would turnit into another Pet or family member... IF it was brazen enough to come up on the porch you would think that was the cutest thing! Wouldnt NO body be able to put it in the Freezer, Mama Digger would be a'chasin Them down the road with the Shotgun!!LOL!!

You know me too well . BBBut------if it's already shot , won't let Nobody clean it and process it but me . Picky, picky digger

Good morning folks.

I planted in my hay bales six weeks ago and everything looks to be doing well so far. I have thirty-one tomato plants which represent twenty-three varieties, most of which are heirloom tomatoes. I also have fourteen pepper plants in bales.

I have a couple of early girl hybrids which are coming on nicely with some nice size fruit already.

I have found two tomatoes with BER. One on a Cherokee Purple and the other on an Indiana Red. I picked them and tossed them. All of the other tomatoes even on those same plants seem to be ok. Is there anything that I should do about this? Will this affect the other tomatoes on those plants as well?

Thank you for all of your help!

Here is a pic where you can see the early girls pretty well.

Jeff

Here is a little wider angle where you can see more of my bales.

Jeff

Jeff, I have heard 2 schools of thought on the BER. One is that they need more calcium. The second is that it is caused by irregular watering. It could be that because the bale gardening is new to you that you don't have your watering down yet?

Just something to look at.

Jeanette

Hi you guys, It has been hot and wet here and the mosquitoes are awful. They are absolutely huge.

The good news is that I picked two cukes and a few frying peppers. My cherry tomatoes are turning red and I should be able to pick in a few days. I have nice size zukes-enough for sauteing in butter and a little garlic. I have planted melons four times now and the next day they are completely gone. I put scarlet runner beans in their place just to see what happens and to please the humming birds

My one concern is that the bale that the cherry tomatoes are in has sunk down to half the size of the others. The roots are showing so I covered them with potting soil. It isn't even half way through June so I can't imagine that this bale will last the season. This seasons hay has not been cut yet so I'm sure that the bales that are left from last year must be pretty pricey now.

All in all, I'm so pleased with bale gardening and am just amazed at all the vegies that we will finally have.

Hugs to you Kent for sharing so much!

Helen

Jeanette,

It may well be my watering... I really don't know how to gauge when enough is enough. We water daily when we don't get rain... I am wondering with the bales if they really don't need watered twice a day when its hot. Seems like they dry out a lot on when the temps have been in the eighties.

Thanx for the thoughts.

Jeff

Jeff & Helen: keep up the good work!

Jeff: water as needed. Just keep an eye out on your feeding needs and watch your plants for signs of low nitrogen, etc.

As for BER, here's an excellent thread link: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/291012/

Does anyone have problem with leaf curl of tomato's? I have a couple that have heavy leaf curl. Thanks

BTW, since Billy mentioned leaf curl, here's 2 very good links that I picked up from the Tomato forum that helps diagnose problems:

http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/DiagnosticKeys/TomKey.html

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/publications/tomatoproblemsolver/

Both sites have lots of info about other vegetables. This is just the link for the tomatoes.

Thanks Kent, i usually don't see curling like this until late summer. It appears the plant is starting to grow out straight again. The main shoot is straighting up. I will see!

My yellow scallop squash is falling out of the bales. My bales are falling apart very quickly.

Betty

Bales falling apart.

My tomatoes are doing good.

Something ate my cucumbers but they still made blooms. I have since applied 7 dust to everything.