Backyard Homesteading Adventures (Making Bales Awesome, Sproutlings, and Getting Ready for Three Sisters)
I don't mind the appearance of straw bales in the yard; grew up in the country and bales were a background fixture. But I am ambitious and full of ideas. And I'm hoping this new one will turn out to be a good idea. So we take this:
And add a roll of 3 foot wide chicken wire and some hardwood stakes, wire cutters, and thirty minutes of choice four-letter words to get this in return:
I didn't take pictures until I was done... my bad. So here's how I did it: Three corners got posts pounded in with a rubber mallet (brute strength wasn't enough). The fourth corner had a stake woven through the chicken wire and then pounded into the ground. Roll the chicken wire around the bales, snip with wire cutters, and bend the cut ends of wire into the wire wrapped around the last stake, like it's hooks and eyes, to finish enclosing the bales. Take one more stake and weave it through the chicken wire and hammer it into the ground where the two bales meet for some added support.
here you can see it woven into the bottom-most row of the chicken wire; that helps keep the wire from bowing out of shape and looking like a melted candle.
Once I had the bales wrapped, I took a look and saw some sagging of the wire. So I took some of the extra wire (single strand about three foot long came wrapped around the roll of chicken wire to hold it tightly rolled) and used it to pin the chicken wire to the strings holding the bales together. Just bend an 1.5 inch piece of wire into a J shape, hook under the sting and pull out a bit. Twist it closed and tuck pointy ends into the bales. and with a few twists of wire, .
When the bales are no more, we'll clip the strings and lift the wire, (with strings attached) and spread the bale remainders as a foundation for next year's garden... and probably get more bales to put in a different configuration and re-wrap, to build the soil up over time for a larger in-ground garden ultimately.
my grand plans for backyard gardening domination.
Why chicken wire? So things such as cucumbers and squash can use the wire as a foundation, and cover the bales beneath leaves and a bountiful harvest. We're going to install drip lines once everything has sprouted which will help keep foliage healthy.
Last night I used some fish emulsion fertilizer on the bales... guess the seeds like it! We have lift off!
Cukes, bush beans and okra have sprung, huzzah!
And the berries continue to flourish, producing more buds for bees to pollinate. We had a bumblebee the size of a small hummingbird buzz the berries and zip out and about before I could get my camera ready.
On the other side of the berry bush (seen in pictures above) I've started breaking ground for a 8foot square patch to give the Three Sister guild a try. Three Sisters, for those who aren't familiar with it, is a form of companion planting where one creates mounds. In the center goes several corn seeds. Once the corn is six inches tall, one then alternates planting beans and squash around the base. The beans fix nitrogen from the atmosphere and puts it into the soil for nearby plants to use and will use the corn as their trellis. The squash provides a microclimate and living mulch. The prickles on the stems and leaves also act as a deterrent.
So we're doing hills of sweetcorn, some Contender beans, and I haven't decided on the squash... choices being zucchini or butternut. I'm leaning toward the winter squash since the bales have crookneck already.
...And as I wrestled with wire wanting to curl up on itself, Rufus spent the time in his bath with his rubber piggy, giving me the stinkeye every time I said his name.
