Tag: straw bales

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08/14/2022 straw bale potatoes

We lifted and sorted through our two straw bales of potatoes since the leaves were all eaten off by blister beetles. Upon moving the bales, we found eight bess beetles…
One fast isopod…
A second fast isopod…
Three baby house mice…
And one click beetle. This brings us to a total of 14 photographed animals plus a whole nest of ants and a small earwig that got away.
Compare this to our glorious harvest: ten potatoes from two bales. Paula is researching where we went wrong. I feel like maybe we should just go back to growing them in soil. (These experiments were my idea so I’m not blaming anyone else.). At least this year’s harvest is safer than last year’s crop of black widow spiders??
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07/17/2022 straw bale sampling and other afternoon torture

We appear to have some potatoes in the straw bales.
The Granny Smith apple is having a hard time. The leaves are turning brittle and possibly sunscalded? We are on mandatory water conservation until the city pump is fixed Monday hopefully so the most I can do is hand water it. However, this apple tree is the most westward facing so maybe it’s just having problems.
Native Texas dandelion in backyard earlier.
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06/21/2022

Gram guards the rooting juniperleaf.
There’s a new pollinator garden on campus!!
Very pleased at least one of the partridge pea seeds I sprinkled last year made it up.
Paper wasps made a nest on the debris of the invasive clematis.
A small lynx spider eats a fly
Just noticed that the long true bugs have little flat pom poms on their antennae.
A second individual. I think you have to see them from the right angle to get a good view of the antennae spots.
Dog
A helpful cat saw this wasp (maybe a spider wasp?) In the aloe and knocked the pot over.
I took it outside and shooed the friend off. No dinner in the house for it. Only cat.
I spotted a plume moth hiding on rain barrel stand.
Potatoes in straw bale getting big. Hope roots are too.
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04/23 front yard

Viola bicolor going to seed!
There’s a lot of it growing this year. I have taken some of the seeds and sprinkled over on the new filled in soil as I don’t want to bury their next generation.
Native Bluets going to seed!
Mystery plant in raised bed. Tree of heaven (invasive non native) has been suggested.
Mostly got this leak taken care of with new rubber seals and Teflon tape. There’s still a tiny drip, but I’ll just call it watering the strawberries. Before, it was a consistent trickle.
Extremely bored helper.
Four varieties of strawberry. First harvest of the season.
Culinary sage in rainbow garden is about to bloom!
Potato straw bales are growing!!
Blue flax babies where I’m pointing, as well as larger ones near front of picture. The broad leafed plant to the right is mealy blue sage.

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Blast from the past… Ok from Friday 🤣

Normally we let both dogs settle their own spots, but Gracie needs space with her arthritis now.
Wedge
Room for old bones
HELLO
Plz hello Gracie
Briar eventually got comfy.
But she still kept wanting to see Gracie.
Gracie says haha I’m safe!!
Wow!  The popcorn came up while I was gone!!
Potatoes in the straw bales are up!!
Mom documented my plant site choosing.
Here goes some annual groundsel and a cute little Euphorbia!
Mom did most of the digging to save my arthritis, for which I am very grateful.  She let me do this one though.  Thanks to Mom and Dad and Gracie for a great staycation-vacation!!!!
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This week’s events… Busy busy

Got winecup (Callirhoe involucrata) seeds in the mail from prairiemoon.com. This species gets boiling water then 30 days cold in fridge. They also kindly sent a free seed packet of Dalea purpurea which we immediately planted.
The straggler roots of Maximilian sunflower are everywhere. Paula and I lifted up this stepping stone to find more. We’re potting them up to give away. The big colony that we transferred over to edge of shade is sprouting too.
Glass gem popcorn now in the raised beds!
Judy gave me these delightful frog stepping stones for my birthday! Thanks Judy!!
The Phacelia leaf in the rock garden is very similar to the invasive geranium leaf I am holding, but isn’t as round.
In the very middle, you can see a single Datura pushing up. The other seedlings look like what I hoped was honeysuckle, but is now coming up everywhere.
This seedling is in the Two-Leaf Senna pot. We’ll see.
Human, you must rest.
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Potato time

We decided it was time to try planting the potato eyes in the straw bales. This one was prepped by watering it and wrapping it in plastic.
Paula plants the same variety in the unwrapped bale that received water and fertilizer.
A little baby yarrow! Not sure if this is a transplant from home or from seed, but glad to see it.
Maximilian sunflowers are still coming up from the area we dug up.
We pulled them up and put them along the back fence.
While digging a hole to plant a little elderberry shoot, I broke open an underground fungus ball. Neat!
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Warm day garden activities

We’re watering and fertilizing two straw bales to become potato growing sites.  The one that we’ve watered and covered with plastic to keep warm is growing straw. At least it’s not got herbicides on it!!
We trimmed the Salvia greggii back for bushiness and spring flowering. We also did the winter pruning for both new and old fruit trees but I forgot to take before and after pictures.
Several seeds are sprouting in the hoops.  If you can zoom in, you may see the two oil traps for earwigs.  It is leftover fryer oil so it should excite their senses. We also planted two varieties of lettuce seeds we forgot before, and sprinkled leaves from the Salvia branches on the idea they might repulse earwigs. Finally, a few seeds are already up: purple lady bok choy, lacinato/dinosaur kale, Scotch blue curled kale, and French breakfast radish.
The daffodils I moved from along the metal edging to among the Salvias are coming up! Hopefully the trim will also make these more visible if they end up blooming. They were previously overcrowded and in the shade, so maybe out here they’ll actually bloom.
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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.