Sierra Foothill Garden

This Year’s Veg Garden Experiment:

The last two years have been straw bale gardens with great success!  This year, there is still so much straw that I decided to see how the tomatoes and peppers would do in the remnants of composted soil and leftover straw.

When observing the garden for the first time after the Winter, I saw a few dried tomato vines and the blue string that encircled the four straw bales that acted as ‘soil’ for last season’s tomatoes and peppers.

I picked about five or six weeds, that’s all!

When raking out the mounds of old straw, I was simply delighted to see that all the old straw from the last two years had formed a foot high mound of the blackest, richest looking soil I’ve ever seen. I mixed the old straw with the soil with my hands and mounded the whole thing up about one foot again.

I added a box of Blood Meal to add nitrogen in case the composting had diminished it, and then watered it in well.

In the last two  years, I used four straw bales forming the ‘L’ three on the long side and one at the bottom.  These mounds lay in the same places.   I’m expecting the roots to extend into the ground under the soil mix here.

Note: From the previous years, hardware cloth was put down under the bales to discourage any possible gophers and is still there.

You can see the “L” shaped mounds here with a flat of veggies I planted yesterday. Next, I’ll string up the wire trellis and when weather gets hot in July start the drip system going.

I love garden experiments!

More of the story:

Part 1: Trying out straw bale garden

Part 2: Summer progress on the straw bale garden

Part 3: Straw Bale gardening in the Sierra foothills: Harvest

The Book:

STRAW BALE GARDEN:Straw Bale Gardens: The Breakthrough Method for Growing Vegetables Anywhere, Earlier and with No Weeding by Joel Karsten