Category: Straw Bale Garden

Congratulations, you are with potato.

Post author By straykat
Post date March 3, 2020
No Comments on Congratulations, you are with potato.

… You should be feeling movement soon, and in 60-80 days, welcome a harvest of new potatoes.

I planted the seed potatoes elbow deep into the straw bales – I create a tunnel of sorts, added some soil, then the potato at the bottom of the bale. Potatoes develop tubers between the location of the seed potato and the surface of the soil. The theory is, that the bale is fluffy enough to allow the potato to make lots of tubers without the need for repeatedly hilling up soil.

I have never planted anything elbow-deep inside of a straw bale. I imagine, giving a pelvic exam to a cow could be a bit like that – probably less scratchy. Weird. Long sleeves are warranted.

Now, two bales are planted with seed potatoes, and I added beet seeds and radish seedlings to the surface. This is done. But more potatoes must be planted!!!

If all goes well, we should have some radishes to eat beginning of April, beets and potatoes about a month later. So exciting!!!

Planting a seed potatoes, elbow deep into the bale.

Two Bales with potatoes inside, beet seeds, and radish seedlings on top!

Edible Garden Potatoes Straw Bale Garden

Time to plant some potatoes!!

Post author By straykat
Post date March 3, 2020
No Comments on Time to plant some potatoes!!

My seed potatoes arrived finally today from the Potato garden! I am very excited to get these spuds started early. I want fresh potatoes end of April!!! Think that’s impossible? Let’s see what happens!

Potatoes as early as End of April, or a new clutch of victims for my cruel black thumb, feared among tomatoes and other heat-loving plants.

Edible Garden Straw Bale Garden

Inside the Greenhouse

The bale in the middle is the first straw bale into which I planted seeds directly, about 10 days ago. There are cabbage and vit (corn salad or mâche) on this bale. They sprouted alright, and I can see first sets of true leaves showing up on the cabbages.

I really enjoy mâche. It’s tender and flavorful: nutty. I had never seen mâche in the stores here, but had loved it when I lived in Europe. It is called “Feldsalat” in German. Here is a link with more info on mâche.
I like mâche dressed with walnut oil, lemon juice, finely minced shallots, and toasted walnuts.

I moved these very young seedlings from the house into the greenhouse yesterday. It’s only 10 days after seeding. We’ll see how this goes.
Here we have a bunch of cabbage:
Cuore di Bue and Golden Acre, as well as a couple of Oregon Spring tomatoes.

Edible Garden Straw Bale Garden

Day Three of Conditioning Straw Bales

Post author By straykat
Post date February 19, 2020
No Comments on Day Three of Conditioning Straw Bales

I started conditioning another batch of straw bales on Sunday. Temperatures went below freezing the Monday and Tuesday night. Not much, about 30F.

I checked on them this morning around 9 AM. There was frost on the bales. But that did not discourage the community within from actively working on turning our bales into planters.

The photos show different bales, with a meat thermometer so we can see the temperature inside of the bales.

This experiment isn’t very controlled – the bales did get different amounts of fertilizer, and some received both blood meal and a commercial lawn fertilizer. Some bales are under a cover. They do get different sun exposure during the day.

But one thing is clear – more nitrogen = more activity! Even with less sun/heat!