The Straw Bale Garden: Planning

Just over a week ago I "broke straw" and began planting a combination of transplants and seeds. Leading up to that I spent many hours reading up on straw bale gardening, conditioning the bales for 12 days, planning what I wanted to grow, shopping for supplies, bugging people at local garden centers and learning a lot about...everything really. But I'd been dealing in theory until this last week, now I'm an official gardener.
One of the most difficult tasks was deciding what to grow in my garden. I made a list of the foods we, as a family, like to eat. After large doses of coffee and many scribbled up lists I decided to go with this layout.

I had to resort to getting my plans up on my kitchen chalkboard door because I kept misplacing the paper it was on and the amount of contemplation that went into these plans just COULD NOT be lost.

I am a huge lover of all things garlic and onion but read they are better cold weather crops so I decided to get three more bales closer to fall and will plant onion, garlic and potatoes as well.

I also nixed the echinacea. I still want to plant some flowers from seeds along the back but haven't decided what and am open to suggestions. I wanted echinacea for making tea but understand it can take two years to bloom so I will sprinkle those seeds around my dilapidated pond near the wicked thistle plant I let grow. Although it's a weed I wanted to try making thistle tea.

My wicked looking thistle. 

A Sickie

No, this is not a selfie, it's a sickie. The kids picked up a bug and that means nobody sleeps for a few nights. Wolfie won't let me put him down when he's under the weather. Today is the second day of the bug but I'm thankful he started in with symptoms the day after Olive because we will be bug free sooner than later. 

I'll never forget the December of 2012...stomach flu for a week with Olive followed by a week of the stomach flu for Wolfie followed by a relapse for Olive followed by a relapse for Wolfie followed by an exhausted mommy after a month of illness in the house. I am extremely thankful that overall we tend to be healthy. Hooray for good health! Now...to get there and stay there! Excuse me while I go pound some Airborn.

The Straw Bale Garden: Getting Started

The straw bale garden is underway! I told myself this would be the year I did it, the year I started an edible garden. My spine said "make sure you make it a raised garden" and my checkbook laughed. I happened upon a website a few months back about straw bale gardening. I bought the book on Amazon for about $12 and got to reading. Some of the pros that convinced me to give it a try was how it was cost effective compared to building raised beds then filling them with good soil, there should be no weeding necessary since the straw and potting mix are not contaminated like soil can be, and it needs less water. And if it really doesn't work out for me I can always build beds next year so I figured why not try this first!?

The kids helping plant some marigolds. Our chicken Rasin sneaking into the shot on the left.

The bales of straw (not hay) had to be conditioned for 12 days before I could start planting. Of course, day 12 was the first day of Danny's work week so I got started planting. Do you know how hard it is to do anything for more than 5 minutes before a diaper needs changed followed by a potty break for Olive, then a potty break for me, oh hurry and put Lola inside because the mail carrier is coming, the chickens are trying to jump up to see if what I'm doing involves them scoring some worms, aw crap a kid just skinned their knee and needs a band-aid, "mommy I'm thirsty", "mommy Liam took MY shovel", it's already nap time? ... let's just say next time, planting day will be on a weekend when Danny is home. Today is day 3 of planting and I still have some seeds to get in around the sides followed by some echinacea flowers along the back. I'll get some photos up as soon as the planting is up and then more when the seeds start sprouting out!

I'm achy, sunburned and exhausted but I think it's all worth it!