Author Topic: Food Gardens 2019  (Read 6995 times)

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Offline bayou girl

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Food Gardens 2019
« on: Apr 22, 2019, 09:33:43 PM »
Starting this in hopes I get my bucket garden going. And Sheri, please tell is again about the straw or hay bale gardening you did.
My friends here are some of the kindest on earth :kissies:

Offline bestofour

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Re: Food Gardens 2019
« Reply #1 on: Apr 24, 2019, 09:59:04 PM »
The best way to do it (which didn't happen this year) is to put your straw bales out in February (for mine and your growing area and probably Florida too), cut a hole in the top and fill it with fertilizer.  If it doesn't rain for a while, water in the fertilizer, then the next week add another cup of fertilizer and water it in.  Add fertilizer the next week and then not again until a month before you plan on planting.  Hopefully the bales will be rained on and maybe snowed :) on a lot during February and March.  So make sure they're  sitting where you're going to leave them because wet straw is mucho heavy.  A month before planting add 1/2 cup of fertilizer every other day for a week, watering in, then break for a week, then add, then break.  When you plant fill the hole with potting soil and plant.  I've never added for fertilizer after planting.

I've been doing this 7 or 8 years now.  The first 2 or 3 years I followed instructions I found online to the letter.  I paid a lot of money for a certain type of fertilizer that contained a bunch of urea, I measured exactly, watered exactly, added on the exact date, took a break on the exact date and stressed over it a bit.  What I found out is that since those 3 years, even though I do the same steps, they don't have to be exact and regular fertilizer works just as well as the high dollar kind.  If I miss fertilizing one day the squash still produces. 

I put down landscape fabric and pallets and sit my bales on top. 

The holes only need to be about 6 inches.  Some years it's almost impossible to dig out or scrape out a hole in the straw then sometimes it's easy.  Not sure why.  Some years Johnny cuts the hole with his Sawzall.  This year I was able to just sort of scrape it out easily. 

Offline bayou girl

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Re: Food Gardens 2019
« Reply #2 on: Apr 26, 2019, 10:24:51 PM »
Good to know Sheri. Where do you get the bales?
My friends here are some of the kindest on earth :kissies:

Offline bestofour

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Re: Food Gardens 2019
« Reply #3 on: Apr 27, 2019, 11:39:43 PM »
Lowe's this year but not always.  Seems hard to believe but they're hard to find.

 

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