SPRING IS COMING!!!

Welcome back to the Ozarks!

I am so ready to get out and do stuff. I have a list of places I want to visit, to learn more about and share with you.

I'm anxious to get in the garden. The critters have all nested in my garden shed and the wood storage trailer over the winter. I fear we'll lose a good portion of the wood there thanks to a rat or two.

After potential thunder storms tonight, rain on and off through Tuesday I should have a stretch of at least four sunny, relatively warm days to dig out the garden shed and the green house. I want to prep the green house for seed trays and I'll be starting seeds in the house in the next couple of weeks while we wait for consistent warm temperatures in the green house to move everything out there.

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

Last October I got in 28 straw bales and I've been conditioning them throughout the winter.  Once a month when they've called for rain, I've gone out and fed the bales with lawn fertilizer. I figure this will give them a head start on the 21-day conditioning process, allowing me to put plants in them a bit earlier than I have in the past.

I still need eight more bales but my local MFA hasn't had any. I'd be happy with just two more or I'll be moving my cucumber trellis - where I plan to plant squah but I'm pretty sure Bob wouldn't be happy with that idea considering he's the one who pounded the 8' T-posts in.

I'm letting this blog slide through the month of March. I have a book to finish writing and one to get off to a potential publisher. The 'day job' has to take presidence. Then I'll be back more regular with travel posts as well as prepping for the lovely weather spring brings.

In the mean time, take stock of your pantry, check the dates on things in your Emergency First Aid pack and I'll see you back here end of the month or first of April. 

WEEKEND TRAVELS - Straw Bale Time!

While you might not think this most exciting travel photo, I'm ecstatic. Straw in southeast MO is hard to come by. We can usually get straw in the fall at the feed stores and box stores like Walmart but fall straw doesn't do a lot of good for those of us doing strawbale gardening - in the spring.

To make matters worse, the box stores want $6+ a bale. 

I've been blessed to find a local supplier. He has 40 acres that he plants in wheat, primarily for the straw. And he only charges $4 a bale!

So today I went out to his place and brought home 12 bales. With this cold, unloading was a chore and pretty much taxed my energy for the dale. Combined with the ones I bought at WM last fall and stored in the green house, this brings me to 20 bales -or there abouts. I'm going to spend some time this week figuring out the whole garden thing. If I have to make another trip out later in the week I might pick up 6 or so more... just in case. 

I also found a Straw Bale app. It's the official one from Joel Karsten. I downloaded the app today but it isn't wanting to open. I've deleted the app and will try a new download.

Next week I'll be showing pictures from a weekend travel to OK. I know it's not the Ozarks but I found some interesting buildings to share with you.

I know I've been absent. Bob was home for two months. He just went back out on Wednesday. I'm battling a horrid cold for the second time and the recliner is my best friend.

Have some Prepper stuff coming up as well as garden talk and sites from the Ozarks. I hope you'll come back.

GARDENING - Looking Good!

I am really liking the Container Corn from Burpee. Although I did have a bit of a scare last week. Heavy winds and rain attempted to demolish my bales. Corn was laying over and I thought for sure I'd lost them. I gave everything a day to dry up a bit then I went out and stuffed them a bit farther down in the bale. As you can see, they are doing well. Here's a close up of Tassle and Silk:

Silk peeking out on that center stalk about 2/3rds of the way down.

Tomatoes are doing well:

If you look almost center of the picture, near the bottom you see an Amish Paste getting ripe. Now if they would just all do that at once so I can put up Spaghetti Sauce!

Plum Tomatoes finally setting fruit. They are also loaded with blooms. And when these fizzle out, I have a volunteer. This little guy came about when my MIL and I were tying up the vines, a couple broke off. I tossed them into the leaf compost in the center of the bales.

Potatoes are going crazy. Even the Sweet Potato vines are spreading out.

Onions are starting to die back. They seem a bit small. Wondering if shoving them down in the bale a bit farther will help.

In spite of the heat and the tiny plants, I have green beans! LOL These will definitely be a fall replant in a couple of weeks:

Finally seeing Banana Peppers. I could use these to produce a bit heavier though as I only have 2 jars left in the stock-up.

2 yellow banana peppers peeking out at the bottom left.

My best producer this year has to be my cucumber plants. Both the Pickling and the Burpless are going gangbusters:

I am picking an average of 4 a day from each plant.

Last weekend I put up 11 pints of bread and butter pickles. I prefer them on a burger. In fact, The Rodeo Bar inside the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas TX serves B & B pickles on their burgers. Yum!

Since I'm the only one who eats pickles here, I'll probably gift a jar or three around the holidays.

How is your garden growing? Leave a comment and let us know how yours is blessing you.

GARDENING - Strawbale Improvements

Sorry I didn't have pics the last few weeks. I did not get as many blog posts scheduled before company arrived as I had hoped. Everyone is gone, my desk is in it's 'forever home' and I can get back to some semblance of a routine.. at least until Bob gets off the boat in two weeks.

For now I have pictures of the garden progress. These were taken about two weeks ago while my Mother -in- law  and her husband were here.  The potatoe plants are looking good. The red ones are even blooming. and you'll see in the bottom right that even the sweet potatoes have improved.

I took this picture of the cucumber plants after my MIL and I had tied them up. Wait til you see the pics next week! The taller plants are the pickling cukes, while the shorter ones are salad cukes. I have since picked enough picklers for several jars of Bread and Butter Pickles. I'll have those to show you next week.

First sign of banana peppers. Not seeing much activity on the bell peppers, though.

In this picture, the cherry tomatoes are looking a bit lean. And very few blossoms. I've never been one to feed my plants but I might have to. Strawbale gardening requires doing things a bit differently and I need to remember that.

I have peas! Okay.. not enough to count as a meal but they are there. I will be replanting these for a fall crop. They just prefer cooler weather.

Green Beans. yeah.. another replant in their future.

Tomatoes, both the Amish Paste and the Big Boys are doing okay. The Amish Paste (pic 1) seem to be producing where as I've not seen much from the Big Boys. Again, feeding might be an option.

I'll have updated pics next week as well as ones of the first batch of Bread and Butter Pickles.

Have a great week!

GARDENING - Straw Bale Progress

I had planned this post for yesterday but woke up to storms so I dove into cleaning the house and didn't stop. I didn't want the cleaning to be yet another 'partial' project. So I did not plug the internet in, even after the storms passed.

While not planted in straw bales, I do have my potatoes planted in straw - in tires. As you can see, the two red potatoes in the background are ready for a third tier. I'll add another tire, more straw and continue to water. The reason for using the tires rather than the straw bales is that by using the bales, I would only get one year's use out of them. This way I can use the tires from year to year. 

The red potatoes are Ruby Sensation. They are about the size of new red potatoes and are only 100 calories per 4 potatoes. The two tires in the middle are Yellow Golds. Similar to the red ones but yellow ;-) They are not doing as well as their red cousins. Then the tire in the foreground is one of 4 that have Sweet Potatoes. They got a later start.

At the opposite end of the bed from the potato tires is the base of the U-shaped bale bed. This is where I've planted the cherry tomatoes. Their trellis is the springs base from my granddaughter's old crib. (though you can see 2 cattle panel sections leaning behind it. Those will be moved for cucumbers)

This is to the right of the cherry tomatoes down the side. In the background you can just make out my pepper plants - 5 bell peppers and 3 banana peppers. Then in the foreground I have 28 sweet onions.

This is the left side... Four bales of Cucumbers. Then in the background there is a bale of carrots and one of beets.

Sad Peas

 Sad Beans

Neither of these are doing well. I think probably because they were planted too late. I'll do better next spring. But at least I know these do work.

Amish Paste Tomatoes

Better Boy Tomatoes

There are 10 bales along this fence line. Prior to using the straw bales, this was my traditional tomato row. (though I did test-run 8 plants in bales on this fence last year).  Tomatoes are doing well, but then they are one of the easiest garden plants to grow with the brownist of thumb.

You will notice some empty bales between the 2 varieties of tomatoes. Next week, I'll show you what I'm putting in there.

While I'm trying to breathe life back into my blogs, posts will not be numerous for the month of June. We have family visiting nearly every day this month. So hang with me ;-)

STRAW BALE GARDENING - The Beginning

Anyone who lives where there is an abundance of rocks in the ground, poor soil and clay know these are not the best conditions for growing plants. There has to be an easier way. Some of gone to raised beds, square foot gardening and container gardens. These are all excellent ways to provide good soil for growing and fewer weeds to pull. 

Last year, I came across the above book and knew I wanted to give it a try. Basically, you spend 10-15 days prepping the bales so that they begin to break down inside, providing compost to plant in. While you can not plant in them year after year as you can the ground, you can possibly get 2, maybe even 3 years of bale use. Then you simply turn them into mulching compost and start new bales. 

I tried a short row of four bales last year for tomatoes and was very happy with the outcome so this year I stepped into full straw bale garden mode. The previous link takes you to the one shown. There has since been an UPDATED version released by the same author. I've gotten my sister involved and we've joined a Facebook group.

While I have stuff growing in them now.. here are pics of the set-up process.

The main bed. There are now a total of 15 bales forming this horseshoe. The rack in the foreground is not there anymore. That is an old card rack from a store that will become a flower tower next year.

The two trellis' are for green beans. I broke down the tomato bales from last year and used them as the planting medium. The empty space on the left now has a bale with a trellis for Snow Peas

You can just see the edge of this in the previous picture. These 6 bales are planted with Peas. The swing set frame is covered in chicken wire.

You can see how the main bed finished out in the back ground. These are the first of a total of 7 towers of tires for potatoes. I have 2 each of Red and White potatoes plus 3 for Sweet potatoes.

Putting this garden together has been a lot of work but I'm happy with the results so far. Next week I'll show you some pictures of growth as well a share a green house 'oops' courtesy of my husband.