First Planting

For the past week, I kept all the transplants outside in the sun during the day, but brought them up on the front porch and covered them with large boxes overnight.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, this "hardening" exercise -- acclimating them to coolness of the evening -- is important for seeds started indoors. 

One (or more) of my cats has decided that tender veggie leaves are great to munch on.  Having found several of my transplants inside with their tops chewed off one morning, I started moving them outside later that day.  I put as many pots as I could fit in flat, plastic storage containers and put them on some of the front straw bales.  In an attempt to protect them, I put a low, wire, garden fence around them to "pen" them in -- I guess what I should say is to keep the cat(s) out!

Seedling Pen

Another issue I had was with the summer squash.  They seemed fine inside, but outside, the shoots have collapsed on most of them.  I would have considered the squash the fastest growing and sturdiest of all the veggies I had moved outside, but they didn't like something -- got too cold overnight, wind might have been too stiff -- I just don't know.  Dad and I talked about it today, and he thought maybe they needed to stay inside a little longer.  I only had one that I was able to plant today, so I put eight more seeds in peat pellets to germinate.  I actually had four, but I snapped those shoots when I was getting them out of the fiber pots to plant in the straw bales.  I was trying to be so careful, but I guess they're just very fragile.  My plan calls for four summer squash plants, so I hope by planting eight more seeds, I have enough that make it to a straw bale.

Most reading I did on straw bale gardening suggests that you should use a trowel to open up a spot on the straw bale to plant each seedling.  You can, but I found that it just produces more of a slit in the straw bale and not a nice hole in which to plant.  When you've conditioned the bales only a couple of weeks earlier, they are still pretty stiff, and -- at least for me -- a trowel just literally didn't cut it.  Instead, I used a heavy (sturdy), serated steak knife to dig into the straw bale and hack at the straw enough that I could pull some out to create a nice deep hole. 

We put in four strawberry plants today.
I'm going to buy four of another variety later this week.

I really think this is important because a slit is not going to let you get very deep, and the deeper you can plant the seedlings, the sturdier they will be as they grow.  Also, if you just have a slit, you'll have to press the transplant's roots into that small space, and that's probably going to damage them.    

After digging into the straw bale, the color is much darker.

One thing I noticed when I was pulling straw out of the bale to create the planting hole was how warm the inside of the bale is.  That's the heat from the decomposing straw, and a key reason that straw bale gardens produce faster than cold dirt.  As suggested by other straw bale gardening writers, I pulled the peat pots off the strawberries today.  It made it easier to press them into the planting holes, and I tore up the peat pots and put the small pieces around the top of the soil (to hold moisture).  Then I put the bits of straw I had cut out/pulled out of the bale on top of the pea to further support and protect the strawberries.

Happy pole bean (left) and pea seedlings.

I planted twelve pea seedlings and four pole bean seedlings along the back of the back two bales. Several of my other bean seedlings had been munched on outside -- even though they were inside the wire pen -- so I will be planting at least eight more pole bean seedlings soon.  Last week, I bought some trellis netting, and after measuring off the length we needed, I stretched it tightly between the two steel stakes I put at the end of each back bale and secured it on each stake.  The beans, peas, and cucumbers that I will plant need this support.  The pea seedlings have already started putting out tendrils to attach to the netting.  As I did with the strawberries, I put the cut out/pulled out bits of straw around those veggies.

April 11th -- First day of conditioning the new straw bales.

 

April 29th -- After just 18 days, decomposition (darkening) is clearly visible.
Looks like the grass is a lot greener, too!

These bales will have pole beans, peas, and cucumbers along the back of these bales, to take advantage of the trellis netting,  In front of them (on the back two bales) will be green peppers, green onions and eggplant.  I'll put four kale seedlings on the front/left bale (plus acorn squash and basil on the front side), and the strawberry plants will have the front/right bale.  I'll also have other herbs planted in the front and west sides of the bales.