Posted on 04/18/2008 8:31:09 AM PDT by Gabz
Straw bale gardening is fairly easy. Make sure you use wheat straw and not pine straw! Also make sure the bales are where you want them! Wet bales are impossible to move! The formula written up in a local magazine that seems to work really well is this—For the first 3 days, jsut soak the bales with water. Days 4-6 add 1/2 cup ammonium nitrate per bale and water in thoroughly. Nitrate of soda is usually availabe in 4 lb bags. You probably won’t be able to find 50# bags of amm. nitrate anymore. It’s what they use to make bombs, so it’s gotten really regulated. The soda helps the bales break down. Calcium nitrate works well too, and the added calcium is great for tomatoes. We only have it in 50’s, but check around. Days 7 and 8, cut the soda back to 1/4 cup per bale. 9 and 10, just water. Day 11 you should be able to plant. Work your hand or a small gardening implement into the straw to make a crack. You can add a handful of good potting soil—not soil from your garden. Plant your plants, and enjoy! We’ve found that you need some 10-10-10 or something, just a light app about 8-10” away from your plants. You can always use miracle gro, and mix a tablespoon of Epsom salt in with it. If you go that route, make sure you do it about once a week.
The straw bales eliminate soil borne diseases. the worst thing is that the wheat grows! You can keep it trimmed with a pair of scissors or grass shears. Usually one tomato per bale, but you can do 2 or 3 peppers. Viny stuff does good but it has to be trellised or it will take over your yard!
The scrunched up paper was the Gam—another small local paper. A gam is a meeting at sea of 2 ships that heave to and exchange news and gossip! I can’t do sudoku—not just mathmatically challenged—completely and totally inept! I can do data entry and basic stuff, but math is not my forte!
Diatomaceous earth is also good for controlling ants. Spread it around the base of your house. It cuts them up the same way.
A friend also used it in her bluebird house to control blowflies and had a much better survival rate for the baby birds. She sprinkled it around in the nest.
Oh. Well, I have good soil for the first time in my life. Grew up with clay at my folks, moved and had it better, but not like this.
Rocks aside (glacial moraine) this is like gardening show soil. Thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I can dig in it even when it’s dry inches down (drains almost too well). And I could about build a stone wall around my property.
Ever used a compost pile?
Compost piles around here become giant fireant mounds! LOL
Thanks for the little tid bit of info on the name of the paper. When I was doing oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico we would tie up our 120ft boats for a few hours at night to transfer equipment and supplies. When the weather permitted we always headed to the other boat's galley to see what the cook had left of the evening meal. Sit and drink coffee.
Never knew what we were doing had a name.
Some of my favorite memories of my childhood are those of my aunts and uncles and cousins and grands all sitting around after a meal, all talking, all of them with a cigarette and a cup of coffee.
People just don’t have time to sit and visit anymore. Sigh
People just don’t have time to sit and visit anymore. Sigh
No, instead we sit inside looking at a screen and type to people we will never meet.
I was thinking the same thing after I posted that! So true!
Yep. But I would never have received the beautiful fig tree I did today!
I’m so pleased you like it! And that it made it! This is kind of like sittng around and talking! A quiet child can sit in a corner and learn alot! I was definitely a quiet child, always had my nose in a book. most adults don’t think a child can read and listen at the same time. :)
OOps! over looked this one!
**problems with insects with several squash **
Try dusting the stems with rotenone if you can find it. some of the pyrethrin or permethrin sprays work as well. Squash vine borers are worse around a full moon. The eggs are laid by a stupid little moth. If you can get the squash up and teh stems thick and tough before the next full moon, they’ll have a better chance. I think the full moon this month is the 20th.
Well that is very nice.
I still miss visiting. I was explaining to my children that in the seventies when I lived upcountry, women and children used to visit for the day. One day cleaning, cooking or canning at one house, one day at your house. The children played together, the women got work done and had a good time and supper was cooked and all the men came to the house of the hosting woman. everyone ate and then went home.
A nice way to live with many hands helping.
My dad is the 8th of 10 kids. We did a lot of visiting, and I have/had aunts and uncles and cousins coming out my ears! I miss that so much! My kids have 3 cousins. I’ve got something like 50. LOL
btw... my Mean Old First Wife came home at 2:00 and ordered me out in the garden to finish the Dahlias. Tough to do in gale force winds but...
Our computer is in the den, in a corner, and my wife is sitting on the couch doing some beading. We are watching the news while the chicken I am cooking simmers in the pan. We are having what I call Maryland fried chicken, rice & pan gravey, string beans and an egg cusard for desert. Aladden and Chashmere have eaten and are waiting to see what they get after we eat ... they always get a taste.
How true, How true...
Oat straw would probably work, too.
You must have a beautiful yard! I love dahlias. Seems like they get spider mites here too much, and voles/ squirrels really like the bulbs.
Good luck with the wind! It blew a gale here last week. Must have been coming straight off an iceberg!
Thanks, I’ll be on the lookout for rotenone.
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