Straw Bale Garden 2011 - Planting

I found these pictures that I forgot that I had taken of Straw Bale Garden 2011 just after planting. Descriptions of each follow each picture, click the shots to enlarge.  Note the soaker-hose held in place by bricks, which worked well.  There are also metal staple-like stakes holding it periodically that are harder to see.  The grass you see sprouting from the bales is actually wheat straw and was easily plucked out where needed.

Above is planted squash pumpkin and honey boat squash along with tomatoes and a lone cucumber plant I believe (it didn't survive).  The pumpkin squash from this bale took over half the backyard eventually.

Next bale over shows the doomed cucumber plant along with more tomatoes.  I planted too many tomatoes too close together and they kind of overgrew and choked each other out later in the summer. They all produced well for a while though.

More squash and/or cucumbers.  These didn't do well as they were badly shaded by the tomatoes that grew all over the fence.

Final bale along the back fence.  More tomatoes and squash or cucumbers.  Again, shading took its toll on the vines here.  The tomatoes actually would have been fine had I left them at what you see here, but it looked so sparse that I added seedlings from the nursery to fill in the perceived gaps - Big Mistake!

Corner bale had black cherry tomatoes that did very well from being on the end and summer squash that grew twisted and yielded one viable fruit.  There are also pumpkin and honey boat squash in here that went crazy, taking over the entire area up to the neighbor's property.

Eggplant bale - only two plants ended up surviving, the rest were eaten by something, possibly slugs or maybe a brave rabbit (Disco Stu was constantly on the prowl).

Wax beans in desperate need of fertilizer.  The slugs loved eating these too, but they actually rebounded quite nicely to yield many meals worth of beans all summer.

Peppers from Home Depot.  One mislabeled as a hot chile (really long, green, and not hot at all), the other correctly labeled as ornamental thai hot peppers that were excellent and very hot indeed.

Mesclun salad blend just starting to sprout.  These worked great as I plucked them regularly to thin them and got some great salads out of this bale.  Replanted the bale later with seeds I got at a flea market that were a year old and barely sprouted anything.  Remember: always go with new seeds if you didn't store them yourself.

Final bale with a couple of squash plants that did ok (farthest uphill, this bale was difficult to keep wet). Also a six-pack of what Home Depot had labeled as bell peppers but ended up being cherry hot peppers. Lesson learned: NEVER TRUST THE LABELS AT HOME DEPOT!!!

How did this get in here?  No, we would never brainwash a baby...

Yes, this is Vivienne at 6 months old in Daddy's old Michigan hoodie.  It only fit for about a week but I wanted you to see that I save it still Mom and Dad.  Go Blue!