Something Other Than Sewing....

I often find myself getting involved in projects that inevitably become a bit of an obsession....home repairs, sewing, roller derby....but one thing I never really cared for was gardening.  In our yard we have rules "If it can't be mowed, it can't live here."  And, we've stuck by that for many, many years.  Until....

Straw Bale Gardening.  Yes, my new obsession.

I read about straw bale gardening this spring and thought "That sounds simple enough that even I could do it!"

So, I did.....

First, you need a whole lot of straw:

The principle behind straw bale gardening is that you essentially plant IN compost.  So the first step is to get the bales started composting.  You spend about two weeks fertilizing and watering the bales to get the composting process started:

Over the course of two weeks, the bales do lots of interesting things like stinking to high heaven and sprouting mushrooms:

But, once the composting process has started AND the temperature of the bales has dropped to allow planting, you essentially plant directly IN  the bales themselves, using a bit of potting soil to protect the seedlings, or to create a seed bed:

Because you are planting in compost, you can plant more densely than you would in a standard garden, and also utilize the sides of the bales as well:

So far, things seem to be going well:

The tomatoes, peppers and eggplant are growing like crazy.  The one issue that I have found is that because the straw is essentially a hollow tube, while it works great as a capillary getting water throughout the bale...it also drains very well, which means watering every day in the heat.  I figured that out after I managed to let my celery plants dry out.  I have a soaker hose along the top of the bales now that I let run each morning for a bit.  Except today.  Today it's plenty wet....