Straw bales through the years...
We have been using straw bales as raised beds for a few years now. With some forethought you can use them over and over. We have had success and failures along with some…Wow, that was not a good idea…but overall it’s been great.
Over the last 3 years these 4 bales have hosted tomatoes, radishes, zucchini, hot peppers, now they will be in their last year. They are hosting our sweet potatoes which when harvested will destroy the bales. They will go into compost.
These bales are going on to their 4th year, last couple they have played host to green beans the yield has been great so right back at it.
Those bales are a little shorter than our raised beds, which are loaded with onions this year, by probably about a foot still making them rather easy to harvest from.
By far the oldest bales in the garden. These are some of the first bales used about 6 years ago, I think. They were going into compost but looked attractive enough to try something. This year host to beets.
Starting fresh…we’re trying using the bales in the greenhouse. In this semi-controlled environment the ‘conditioning’ phase was a breeze.
Trying carrots a habanero pepper and a Turkish cherry tomato plant. The carrots hopefully will be a winter crop also.
It’s still a little early things haven’t had the time to fully grow out but it looks like a promising year overall in the garden. We have Kazakh Melons coming up, the strawberries look prolific. Of course the tomatoes are starting to flower with some even putting out fruit. Still have some of last year’s harvest in storage so this could be the year to really stock up.
Put on your gardening gloves and a big smile…forget about insanity for a little and go grow something.
Contact with the soil is good for the soul…ok…maybe forget the gloves.
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Us too!
We love to repurpose as much as we can. The center post in the greenhouse is the top part of a tree I had to cut down. Just debarked it a fit it in.
We subscribe to a few trying to keep it as local as we can. We’ve had gardens for many years in different locales in Michigan so we’re pretty much self taught at the School of Gardening Failures.
You try…you succeed or you do not so well…but learning all the while.
We did that one year then decided to grow in large grow bags. No dig, just tip over on a tarp and get the goodies.
We cut down on amount of bags this year…we had 4 before, still have plenty dehydrated and mashed which is frozen in meal size packs. Zucchini mounds in front.
But the room we have is more than a lot of people have. Our volunteers are mostly tomato plants they pop up everywhere..my dear wife throws her old tomatoes into the compost pile and by the next yea we are invaded by very generous volunteers…
