Hay bale, containers?

[Earl]

Not sure if they could be catagorized as containers, but they work pretty good. I wonder how they'd work in my Greenhouse? In picture below, I went to trouble of adding compost on top, made the frame and sowed seed. But transplanting should work as well using plain bales.

[garnetmoth]

What is the small frame on top filled with?

I read that potatoes could be raised in straw/leaf mold but my leaf mold wasnt decomposed well enough last year, it didnt retain much water at all.

Do you fertigate regularly?

Great looking lettuce, and i love your frog with tie

[Earl]

After I put the frame on I put a few inches mixture of composted peat and cow manure. It's best to use older bales of hay if available. I don't remember if I added more fertilizer. The next spring, any of the hay that hadn't composted I used as mulch.

Have you every read the "No Work Gardening" book by Ruth Stout? Her entire garden was covered with deep hay. She'd just pull the hay back and plant.

[velikipop]

Earl,

With limited space to grow I have been tempted to try your method. Clearly it works. Do you leave the plants in the bale or transplant?
Another interesting book on no digging easy gardening is by Patricia Lanza called Lasagna Gardening. I might give it a try soon.

[Earl]

Veli,
I think I just thinned them out for salads. I sowed the seed on top of the hay. I was a one time experiment. I use raised-beds. But now since I have a greenhouse I'm thinking about trying it in there. If it ever warms up enough for me to start heating it! :-)

[chemocurl]

What a neat sweet set-up!

Do you think straw may work almost as well as hay, or that possibly it wouldn't have as much good organic content.

Sue

[DavidinCT]

Very clever idea. Been wondering how to handle Zuchino da Fiore* (zucchini bred to produce blossoms) sprawl and keep the blossoms clean. This looks perfect. Might build a hay bale fort filled with dirt and let the blossoms hide the whole thing as they sprawl up and over the bales.

*Bill McKay carries the variety. Tomatoville Seed & Plant Sources forum : Seeds from Italy (GrowItalian)

[Earl]

Sue, straw bales should work fine.

[Big_Red]

Here's a picture of one of my Mexico tomatoes raised in a straw bale. This method works very good but I found it didn't work quite as well as do-it-yourself planter tubs.

[Big_Red]

Try this one, posted the wrong picture before!

[ddsack]

Red - those look really nice! Did you sink the post into the bale, or is it in the ground behind the bale? What a tidy compact growth, is there a cage hidden under all that foliage too? I have lots of open sunny space, but I'm done with tilling up more dirt. Hay bales make a lot of sense to me.

Only problem left is the deer. Guess I'll have to invest in a 3rd electric fence unit. I'm just so tired of having to look at wires in my landscaping. This morning while making my bed, I happened to glance out the bedroom window, and there were two deer, bedded down taking naps about 35 feet out from the window. Part of a group of seven that hang around.

[Big_Red]

ddsack - I used those iron fence post driven into the ground at both ends of the bales. Then a 1"x1"x 8' post was screwed into each post. This picture was taken in July, by the end of the season the plants were growing over the top of my stakes. No cages, just tied them to the posts with baling twine.

[ddsack]

Red - did you use the "douse with water and fertilizer and wait a couple of weeks" method? How long before planting did you start working on the hay bales? Could you explain your bale preparation method, -- and did you use good quality hay? I'm wondering if in theory you'd get better growth from say an alfalfa hay than from oat straw.

Dee

[Big_Red]

Dee - I used blood meal for a starter, 1 cup per bale every three days watered in good, then 1/2 cup every other day until the bales started cooling off. Takes about 10 - 11 days. I used wheat straw.

[Big_Red]

Here's a picture of my bales just after I set them up.