I have been busy working on finishing up my PhD and have been a very lazy gardener, and blogger. The beauty of doing the straw bale garden was even though I have not been able to tend to it much it has been doing pretty good.
It's the end of September and I am still getting a lot of tomatoes, and the eggplant has finally come in.
The weather this year has really had an impact on my garden. In the spring it was very cool. The tomatoes, peppers and eggplants stayed very small and did not start really taking off until about August. Also it was very wet. I posted earlier about the excessive amount of rain we have had this year, with June being extreme.
According to the Illinois State Climatologist blog, this year was the 6th wettest summer for Illinois ever recorded. Illinois officials have sought a federal disaster declaration from USDA in response to the heavy rainfall and damaging flooding across Illinois during May, June, and July of 2015.
And I think the rainfall really took a toll on some of the plants in my garden. The straw bales hold moisture well, a little too well. Because of all the rainfall they never were really able to dry out completely during the months of July and August. I did not water the straw bale garden one time in these months because it didn't need it.
I noted in my July 21st post that one of my 2 summer squash plants was wilting. I think this was due to root rot. The week after the first plant went, the second one died as well, leaving me with only two summer squash. At least I got a little food out of the deal.
Also I posted earlier how well the cucumbers were doing. Some of them tasted good, but I noticed that as the season went on they were getting extremely bitter, which is a sign of stress. Cucumbers like well drained soil, but the straw bales were not drying out. This was unfortunate because I was looking forward to lots of cucumber salads, but ended up not eating very many because of the bitterness. The cucumber plants also did not get very much sun which may have stressed the plants as well. |
| the last cucumber |
The tomatoes, peppers and eggplants that seemed to be stunted by the cool weather in the spring, flourished in the late summer and were not at all fazed by the dampness of the bales. Also the parsley, basil and nasturtiums did not suffer. These plants got the most sun, which may have contributed to their success.
The kale did well, but it didn't get as big as I thought it should have. It did not seem to suffer from the damp bales, but it was located in the shadier part of the garden.
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| Kale |
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| Kale |
And there are still lots of tomatoes!
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| These pear tomatoes did extremely well. |
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| Tomatoes and nasturtiums taking over the compost bin. |
Some plants that were planted in the shadier area did not do well at all. The beans did not amount to much, and the peas never bore fruit at all. I also planted radish seeds in some of the bales, the radish greens grew but not much came of them.
Here is an image of the end of the year garden. As you can see my trellising efforts have been defeated by the weight of the tomato plants. Next year I will try to drive the stakes in deeper and instead of using wire, I will invest in something a little more sturdy.
Also I wanted to try to show how much the bales have shrunk throughout the season. It is hard to see in the picture below, but I had some green wire fencing wrapped around the bales to keep them upright. If you can try to see where the fencing is you can see that the bale is no longer touching it.
Here is another picture of the shrunken bales. They have decomposed a lot.
Next year it will be a different story for this garden. The people who bought the house next door have informed me that they will be parking their 30 foot mobile home right in front of my garden, where the tomato plants did so well. On the bright side, they cut down a very large oak tree in their yard removing some shade that was taking a toll on the garden.
We will see what the future holds. All in all I am very happy the way the straw bale garden turned out, especially since it didn't require very much work at all. I will definitely be doing this again.
