Straw bale gardening

I read a book about straw bale gardening. The bale requires a bit of composting first. So one is wrapped in plastic to accelerate. Once it’s happy we’ll move to other bale. Next month seed potatoes will be sold at feed store and we can put them in. Thanks to friends of blog for donating their leftover fall decoration bales to this experiment.

Tomatoes for Mom

All three kinds up! Once a tray is all up, I move it immediately to the stronger natural light of the plant window from its original place in the dimmer UV light on the heating pad. After a few days I’ll probably start taking them to the porch too for even stronger light.

Cold stratification

Various wildflowers. They’d get cold stratification outside too, but they could also get eaten. I have mostly scattered some out then saved some too, to maximize my chances of getting things established.

Field trip for indoor plants and tomato gets a new cage

Roman chamomile and Peruvian ground cherry soak up sun and water.
Left dwarf tomato is Audrey’s Love that has right. Right dwarf tomato is Bendigo Dawn which has flowers but no fruit. Paula suggested we add bone meal so we did.
We also added a bigger cage for climbing for the Bendigo Dawn tomato.
Lettuce, peppers, bok choy, and jagallo nero kale.

Thinking of summer yesterday

Tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, and chard and roman chamomile in all the rest. We need a lot of chamomile starts as I want to use it as a ground cover around the vegetable raised beds.
Sitting on the saffron leaves.
Gram’s not sure about outside leash time but he’s getting more confident.
He always perks up and feels safer when big sister comes by to check on him.
“Hello big sister”
Maybe he could do without getting groomed. She nibbles him.

Indoor baby tomatoes!!!!!!

I found two baby tomatoes on the dwarf Audrey’s Love Tomato!!! The dwarf Bendigo is very tall and has some flowers, but no fruit yet. I have been just brushing the flowers with my fingers and shaking the plant a bit for pollination.

Garden intervention

Our friends have been having trouble getting native plants established in their yard. In the past we’ve done spring and summer transplants and they’ve put in seeds too. Nothing has taken, so today Paula and I delivered and planted two of our hardiness species.

A stalk of Maximilian sunflower settled into a yard with Bermuda grass.
Their old Christmas tree shelters the newly moved dirt from Dog Ideas.
Showy evening primroses in their enclosed garden area.

Moving the Max

Big empty hole in the prairie patch where we dug up the Maximilian sunflowers.
We brought a single stalk here from our old house and now it’s a massive 2×3′ ish patch.
Broader view. Put more cardboard down to kill Bermuda.
Briar just sat here while plant stalks went everywhere.
Such dignity.
Found a lost loofah in the front yard afterwards.