Category Archives: straw bales

How to Move a Garden

by

0

This past month has been occupied with moving a 750 sq ft garden from a site that is being converted to an access road. Although a permanent location is not solidified, nor is the design, the temporary arrangement is …. crates! About 110 sq ft of crates!

This was our garden … RIP

Milk crates (12″ cubes) are being used for the primary (new) crops, while vegetable crates (22″x14″x9″) are housing the asparagus crowns and the strawberries. Liners for the crates vary: the vegetable crates holding asparagus are lined with burlap bags, donated by a local coffee roaster. Since the burlap will deteriorate over time, when the asparagus needs to be transferred to its permanent bed, we can just lift the burlap and crowns as a whole and place in the bed, with minimum disturbance. When we moved the asparagus we carefully dug as far under the crowns as possible to minimize disturbing the roots. After a rain, they crowns have produced another crop of fronds. This is a good sign.

The strawberry crates are lined with net bags that housed onions for transport. Again, the strawberries were lifted with as much native soil as possible so that there was little shock. They have now been thinned and are mulched for the winter.

The milk crates are lined with weed barrier, to allow for drainage, but not allowing the soil to leak out. They are filled with soil from the garden and seeded with kale, spinach, carrots, turnips, arugula, and chicory greens. Take a look at the kale and spinach, thriving in the fall weather in its new home!

Thriving kale and spinach!

Now, as an aside, I’ll say that the milk crate garden idea comes from the Riverpark Farm NYC, which created and maintains a large farm solely in milk crates! And milk crates are so portable, that the farm has moved a couple of times since its inception. It’s a marvel.

So … here in Tulsa it can get quite cold. There is a plan. There are two methods that we used in the old garden beds:  mulching heavily and using row cover. The new, temporary, garden will receive those two treatments.

The asparagus already has been given a mulch of straw.  The mulch will insulate from temperature extremes, and will help the soil hold moisture when it rains (or we water).  When the spears turn yellow, we will cut them to about 1-2” and then mulch with about 3” of straw.  This should carry them through freezes.

 The strawberries are getting some light mulching, but as the freezes start we will be adding straw.  In February of this year, when the Great Freeze happened, we completely covered the plants with straw.  When the weather began to warm again, we pulled it aside and the little green leaves perked up.

As for the rest of the crates, we’ll be creating a microclimate.  That means modifying the environment around the crates to lessen the impact of extreme weather.  In the next few weeks, bales of straw will be placed on the north side of the milk crates.  The straw will protect the crates from north winds.  Then the crates will also be sporting hoops to support row cover.  The row cover will also lessen the impact of weather extremes.  And, if it snows or ices, the snow/ice will settle on the row cover and become insulation! 

Fall is Here! Egg Production Up… and Strawbale Class coming

by

0

 

image

 

Fall is here, and egg production is beginning to ramp up in the coop.  I guess it’s the cooler nights and not-so-hot days.  All three Ameraucanas are now laying….with an occasional egg from the Rhode Island Red.  But I’m still waiting for the Black Cochin and Black Austrolorp to come online.  I’ll supplement their feed with some more protein – yummy meal worms and maybe some calcium to help them along.

 

I was reflecting the other day how going out to take care of the chickens in the morning has become a time of untime.  I move into a zen and no-time, as I care for them, cluck at them and generally carry on the morning conversation.  It would seem odd to hurry through the routine.  Chickens truly are a stress reducer… ask anyone who has sat and watched them scratching as they foraged.

I’ll be teaching strawbale gardening on October 3, Saturday, 10 am at Trinity Haymarket (1715 Market Center Blvd).  The class is free, and the proprietors Bill and Fred have coffee and pastries to munch on before the class begins.  You can learn how to condition strawbales organically to grow (especially) greens for the winter.  Strawbales are excellent choices for a temporary garden, a garden for not bending over, or just plain fun!  and when the season or two the bales last are over, you have COMPOST!

Also come and check out Trinity Haymarket’s new offerings – Sojos freeze-dried, no-grain dog food.  Super nutritious, as well as local honey, chicken and bee supplies as well as organic garden supplies.  It’s like an old-time feedstore and really fun to visit.

Beautiful Weather for Gardening

by

0

Greens-2Bin-2Btub-2B110714
This week I worked on my own container garden, thinning the kale, mustard and chard to make room for a few plants to truly take off.  I added azomite as well as worm castings before planting. 
Azomite provides multiple trace minerals (they say as many as 70!) that have been leached from our soils over the years.  That’s one reason our food is less nutritious than it was 50 years ago. 
And it’s another reason to garden organically.  What goes into the soil, goes into the plants, and goes into our bodies.  Our bodies also need these trace minerals.  Okay, I’ll step off my soapbox now.
I did have a wonderful greens supper the night of the thinning, cooking my mustard and kale greens with olive oil and garlic.
 
Entrance-2Bpot-2B110614
Another fun activity this week was planting a client’s ornamental pots, strewn about his pool area as well as his front entrance.  It’s a modern house with a magnificent view. 
He wanted color for the winter.  I chose cyclamens (rose, pink, red) as well as crotons (interesting veins of red, deep green, light green and gold), moneywort for ground cover and dripping from pots, cardoon (beautifully spiky for a variety of texture; this plant will grow larger), alyssum (for fragrance and some low level white contrast) and sedum (this variety has a purplish green leaf and is a ground cover that is also dripping over the edge of the pot). 
I even threw in a couple of chard plants!  Those will also grow larger, although they are hidden now.  I just can’t resist putting in an edible or two – maybe I should have also added some purple cabbage?  Well, too late now.  Since I’ve been focused on edibles, this was a fun variation.
Pool-2Bleft-2Bpot-2B110614AND THEN, I gave a talk on straw bale gardening to a local gardening group.  The advantage of straw bales is that they are mobile. They are also temporary and are ideal for renters who want to garden but don’t want to tear up a landlord’s yard.  Another use is if the only spot for a sunny garden is on the patio or the driveway! 
I found Joel Karsten’s book  (see my page on My Favorite Reference Books) on straw bale gardening particularly interesting, but decided to use an organic program to condition the bales rather than the one he uses. 
I’m on my second set of straw bales. The first ones worked really well, and by the end of the summer the tomatoes had completely covered the bales – you had to really look closely and pull tomato vines aside to see the bales.  But they required little watering and the interior was nice and composted. 
Straw-2Bbale-2Bplants-2B101014The second set I’m working on is a bit slower going because of the cooler temperatures.  I’ve used a different set of organic materials. It takes time – the plants are slow at first, but when they hit the composted interior….WOW! … they take off.  Here’s a picture of what my current set looked like on October 10.  Note the mushrooms that have appeared like stars among the transplanted greens. That means that the bales are “cooking” with microbes.