What it’s Really About

Day 3. A large part of the impetus for this gardening effort is our grandson. Fear not, this won’t become a digital Grand Parental Boast punctuated by scads of photos of his sweet little face. I do love him to bits but we’re sticking to the subject here. The point to be made is that it’s a project he can help with, that has showy results, and that will teach him a little bit about food sources. All things that I’m more than a little excited about. The real win will be if he’ll actually eat anything at harvest time. Sweet little face aside, that boy’s got a vegetable aversion like no one I’ve ever met.

Garden plot/nefarious plot – you say tomato/I say tomaatto…

Finishing up the day’s application of that stuff.

You don’t need a super hero for this but if one happens along…press him in to service!

There’s never a shortage of canine company.

This is the ground beside the bales. The runoff (and the fact that the bales have a distinctly puffy look to them now) would seem to indicate we’re doing well with bale soaking.

Straw Bale Garden…Day 2

The bales were well soaked by the afternoon of day 2 so I moved along to the next step of the conditioning process. They need a high nitrogen fertilizer to help the straw break down, creating a nutrient rich environment for the plants. High nitrogen? Turns out that’s the first of the 3 numbers on fertilizers. I know so little. Blood meal is very high in nitrogen and if you can get past the fact that it’s…well, blood, it should be up to the task.

A light dusting of about 1/2 cup of that which shall not be pondered on each bale. Apparently it can be up to a full cup but it quickly became clear that I need to find more economical nitrogen so I was frugal.

Simple enough.

Water it down into the bales where it’ll get to work.

Must find that shadow puppet book…

Forgot to turn the water off before switching from nozzle to soaker hose.Water, water everywhere! Stella was amused.

As Green as it Gets

I know nothing about vegetable gardening. Nothing. I don’t even know what gets put in the ground as a seed and what’s planted as a baby plantling; let alone when all that takes place. Common sense dictates some logic and I’ve heard moon cycles discussed in hushed tones but I’m really frightfully green. And not in the horticultural sense.

So I turned to the tutor du jour and set about learning. Somewhere in my travels through Google and YouTube I came across straw bale gardening and thought “Raised beds, absence of dirt (mostly), resistance to weeds, confusion of pests…I’m in!”

Off to Minden where 8 bales of straw were loaded into the truck by a most helpful vegetable market owner and I was stung by a most cranky wasp. Shake it off, there’s a garden to be planted.

It’s important to have the bales situated before the conditioning process begins. They’ll be too heavy to move.

As level as possible is important. They’ll become less stable as they break down.

Water, water, water. The bales have to be thoroughly soaked. Later in the day I rethought the layout and pushed them together, removing the spaces between. There will be more support that way and I can still easily reach any part of the surface from the sides.

A pause to rethink this whole water, water, water thing. Blackflies are a marvelous motivator.

The soaker hose is your friend.

Off to a fine start.

Sabbatical

• a break or change from a normal routine (as of employment)

Source: Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary

• what I’m up to these days

Source: Shelley Schell