Post by mrchicken on Sept 30, 2015 11:41:15 GMT -5
5th year in a row for us.
Some things work great, some not.
Here is what works great for us. 1. Tomatoes LOVE straw bale garden. We are still getting ripe red tomatoes and will until frost. 2.Okra, starts slow but puts on good. 3. Raddishes start early and put on heavy. 4. Strawberries do well but you have to water the snot out of them in a straw bale.
Works good/OK 1. Green beans. Not quite as good as in quality soil, but they start at knee level so less bending over to pick!! 2. Purple hull peas and black eye peas. Start slower than in dirt but put on about as well once they get going. 3.Carrots. Start slower than quality soil but we have hard clay so its our only option. Be sure to cover the tops with a little extra hay 1/2 way to harvest. 4.Eggplant. Did well but I have nothing to compare to so its in the good, not great section. 5. Peppers. Put on early but plants were a little stunted. We didn't fertilize as much as usual so plants were about 1/2 as big as in the ground.
Didnt work. 1. Strawberries. Our drip irrigation system was uneven and missed most of the strawberry plants so they were always a bit dry. Plants were small with little fruit. 2. Salad greens. For some reason they started slow, plants stayed small and only a few produced anything. 3. Broccoli & Cabbage. Slugs and some green worm clobbered them before we noticed. One day they were fine, 3 days later it looked like somebody shotgunned the plants. We also started 4 weeks late and missed the window. Both should do well if better cared for but we dropped the ball this year.
Pros, easy, no tilling, less bending over, good production. Almost no weeding. Less bending over, almost no weeding. Did I mention less bending over and almost no weeding? ;-) Cons, different bugs to watch for, different plants need different fertilizer amounts and water amounts. Tomato plants get so big they need extra supports. (Florida weave works good! )
Overall we like it and this year did ONLY a strawbale garden. In our area of the South, the crabgrass takes over the standard garden in June and there is no effective way to combat it. Give it a whirl, I think you will enjoy it.
2014-15 Trapping Season
1 bobcat
6 coons
2 yote
21 grinner
1 beaver
14 mice
2 Stinker
Want to set up a garden at the bush cabin & transporting straw would be a lot easier than hauling dirt for a raised bed -- to get things started until we can rework a section of woods into a garden.
