Back to Eden Gardening Thread~Note: pic heavy thread.

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I'd never used round bales for much of anything before, so today I got my first lesson in rolling out round bales. It's hot, scratchy work and appears easy at first, but they don't all roll out neatly into nice neat mats. The first one did, which lulled me into thinking "This will be a piece of cake!".

Wrong.

The first was first cut hay, been sitting around rotting for a couple of years I'd say. Came off that roll in a nice, neat mat like it was designed for this purpose...a nice 4-6 in thickness. Cool!

The second one I did was a partial, second cut hay bale...whoever baled that needs a new baler. It was all crinkled up inside and didn't roll at all and those longer strands of the timothy grass and such made it extremely hard to fork and spread evenly. The second bale, much larger and a full bale, same hay and baler...didn't roll worth a shuck. This hay was baled this year so it's got a lot of green in it still, which is going to bode well for the garden, but it also has a lot of timothy seed.

Fourth bale, first cut and rotten like the first bale, rolled out more evenly than the newer, second cut hay, but had a really rotten side that made it roll out unevenly.

I should have worn long sleeves, but it's awfully hot here today(end of November...whoever heard of having to wear shorts and a Tshirt at this time of year???), so I'm itching and sneezing like crazy and blowing black mold out of my nose.

BUT...I got it done in just a few hours, by myself and with plenty of breaks to eat lunch, get drinks and do this or that~while also applying bags of leaves prior to the roll out and putting hay and leaves in my apple rings. It would have taken me, by me onsies, all day long and into the next day to shovel that many chips to the depth I'd need and to spread them all out.

Leaves on in a thin layer before applying hay...

Hay and leaves layered into the apple rings...

Old Jake really loves the hay...

Still a lot of green left in this second cut hay...

The soil in the middle of the garden, right under where we drive the truck in, so it's pretty compacted compared to other sections. This is what the wood chips have done...this was scraped up with just a blunt nose wire cutter, so very easy to move, crumble, plant into. NOT our typical soil, which is a greyish hard pan clay that you'd need a backhoe to scratch up.

I still need to go out there and do a final tuck and fluff of the more uneven applications into thinner areas but at least the entire surface of the garden is now covered at a 4-12in. depth.




Here's an interesting little vid of what the soil looks like under hay that had been sitting on it for a few months...

 

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This pic shows the state of my soil after tilling it thoroughly 5 times, then after a couple of rains. This is a corner that I didn't have the chips spread to yet. I had to stand on this fork to get it even that deep and I'm a BIG gal....instant hard pan!

I kind of let some weeds go that first year, for some reason or another, and found they were a delight to pull up! Also found a huge difference in the color and texture of my topsoil by fall of that first year.

Five months later I could see a difference in the top soil layer and also in how deeply I could put that fork, without even putting my weight on it.

When I pulled those weeds they came out like a knife out of butter and I found this rich, black looking stuff on the roots....

Never saw soil like THAT in this garden....no matter how many amendments and mulches I had tried on that garden space in the past~hay, straw, composted manure, green manure, biochar, etc.

So I pulled several barrows of this.....

Put it in the coop....

.... to make more of this, to put right back on the garden....

That's sort of how my DL system works and this is how this type of gardening works....any garden debris is added to the DL, any removal of nicely composted DL~no piling it up and waiting for it to be okay to put on the garden~is placed on the garden.

 

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Most folks would say that composting weeds and then adding the compost to your garden will cause more weeds but I haven't noticed that at all....the grasses that seemed to grow that first season were composted in the coop and were not the same weeds/grasses that seemed to occur the second season. Each year they all seem different.

One thing I did learn about composting in the coop....do NOT put your tomato canning scraps in the DL in the coop! The first year I did that, I had millions of volunteer tomatoes in the garden....I was pulling up those little guys all season. I let some of them grow if they were in the right place and they were healthier than most of the tomato plants I intentionally planted but it was still a bad, bad idea.

 

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Took a few pics of some of the things growing in the BTE method so far this year...not all by any means, but just a few of the things. I think the third year must be the pay off year for this method, as things are just bursting from these gardens like never before.

I've planted this flower bed with various seeds and annual bedding plants over the years but this year I just threw down some seeds and got a full bed of flowers coming on strong. Never got such growth there before...after the rains this week, this group of flowers are heading up for blossom~zinnias, calendula, Bachelor's Buttons, marigold, Black-eyed Susan, tickseed, and various wildflowers.

Cattle panel rings around the apple tree saplings have been composting for two years, a combination of wood chip, leaves, straw, chicken litter, horse manure, etc. Planted them last year to spuds but got all tops and no spuds, but this year it seems a normal crop of taters. These are red Pontiac.

These two were planted a few weeks after those above.

The sugar snap peas are taller than me now...I've never had sweet peas grow that big in my life. Maybe y'all have, but in this soil I've never had them taller than a couple of feet tall, with spindly vines. This is one section....I have four of similar size around the fence of the garden.

Those Fortex beans everyone said would be hard to germinate...every single one has come up and are strong as can be.

Strawberries returned from last year's garden and have made more of themselves...I've had a handful of sweetness off them already this year.

The honeysuckle is having a banner year...the storms have brought down a lot of the blossom but it's still lovely and bursting with sweet scent!

And this is the year for roses in this garden method...they are blooming like crazy and the blooms are vibrant, the foliage dark green.

I'm very excited about year three of the BTE!!! As if you couldn't tell.....

 

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Had to scuffle hoe the whole garden again today, as the tiny weed seedlings are like a carpet in this exposed topsoil. This will keep happening until we haul chips and put on the top of this BTE. All the sudden the chips just seemed to get thin in most of the garden, so I guess that means it's time to get some chips on there.

On a bright note, I found a much cheaper and stronger alternative to the Agribon fabric for low tunnels...and I found it at Good Will. You know those bedskirts that are real cheapies and have the material that lies under the mattress that feels like paper more than fabric? Well...we can get those for $2.50 at the local GW and, depending on the size of the bedshirt, one can yield several feet of tunnel material by cutting that out of the bedskirt. Perfect for this purpose and much tougher than the Agribon!

If I get king sized skirts, those are 12 x 8 ft., so splitting it into to get two 12x4 ft. tunnel covers can get me 50 ft of tunnel material for around $5 instead of $20 and shipping. Four ft is a bit squeezy to cover certain tunnels but I think it would work for mine. I got a twin yesterday to experiment with for my tiny squash tunnels.

 

[Britesea]

Have you ever tried eating the young shoots and tendrils of the peas? I learned last summer that they taste deliciously like peas and go great in a salad.

 

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Planted a flat of annuals, landscaped around the peonies and a rose bush, hauled composted chicken litter for those beds and then covered with wood chips.

Planted three perennial herbs in the garden and also some wild daisies I picked out by the mailbox. Watered tomato and lettuce seedlings and all the freshly planted flowers.

Walked around with a huge smile in my heart at all the beautiful growth this year!

 

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Hauled a truck load of chips yesterday, just need to distribute them. The sugar snap peas are heavy and in need of picking....if I am still here next year, I'll definitely trellis them better. Just never had sweet peas get this tall and thick before!

Will likely plant tomatoes soon...they are getting big enough to be put out. My pepper flat is showing germination! That should be the last seedlings I start in trays this year.

Everything under the tunnel is looking GREAT! Don't know that I've ever grown such pretty lettuce, carrots and broccoli. Never grew pak choy before, but it's so quick to germinate and grow it's like greens on cocaine!

It's been a good garden year thus far!

 

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A few pics of the flowers in the front BTE...getting quite a few species of butterflies out there now, what with the butterfly bush getting ready to bloom and all these other flowers. I tried to get pics of a few of them but could never get close enough for a good pic without them flying away.

This bed of wildflowers is just starting to show good color but will not be in full blaze until July, most likely. I'm loving the delicate pink flowers that are blooming right now, but the Bachelor's Buttons, Zinnias and Calendula are starting to put out the first blooms as well and soon they will steal the show.

 

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Here's a few pics of my son's tiny BTE in town..this is his second year and things are growing like crazy in his and no pests.

His squash, planted at the same time as mine that I had to rip out, is producing squash and he has a volunteer tomato with small fruit showing on it, is tall and lush with plenty of bloom. The tomatoes I planted in his garden at the same time as mine are also deeper green, thicker stalked, and more lush than those in mine...but he does water his garden and I cannot.

That volunteer tomato....looking lovely and lush!