Straw Bales are planted....Everything is in!

Pepper, Leeks, Onions and Tomatillo's with a top dressing of trailing flowers! 

The bales are done with their twelve day process of conditioning.  I mostly followed Joel Karsten directions (screwed up days 3, 4, 5 and added more fertilizer than I should have) however this is a pretty forgiving process and the bales where cooking away come day 12.  

Now this whole garden is new, the raised beds, the squash arch, and even the placement of the bales.  Strangely enough winter sunlight seems to be different than summer sunlight, in other words those darn leaves on the trees changed a lot of my sunlight to shade.  Now, it also preferable to run your bales north to south, but Jim, my husband, wasn't having any of it.  So our compromise was putting the bales on the end of the raised beds running east to west.  The problem with this configuration is if I put my larger tomatoes in the bale's (which was the plan) it will shade two of my beds.  So where in the past I've done all my tomatoes in the bales and eliminated blight issue's, that was not options for these bales.  So the bales on the south side of my raised beds, which get about 8-10 hours of sun have in them; eight pepper plants, one California Wonder, two Habanero’s, two Picante, three Jalapeno’s.  There are twenty six leeks and ten red onions as well as three Verde Tomatillo plants.  The leeks and onions I purchased as sets, the Pepper's I grew indoor under my lights and the Tomatillo's are Winter Sowed.  After reading Joel Karsten book on Straw Bale Gardening I took the challenge of trying to make my bales "pretty".  So right on the edges are Red Wave Petunia's and Blue Lobelia.  I have some trailing Nasturtium that I've started by seed as well.  As stuff fill in I keep everyone updated with pictures.  The four bales on the other side get 6-10 hours of sunlight so I planted them a bit differently.  The back two bales have Johnny Seeds Gonzales Cabbage I grew from Winters Sowing.  These are mini cabbage that are about 4-6" in diameter.  So I planted them a bit closer than what Joel Karsten recommended.  Ok so instead of 4-5 I put in 10 and then mixed a dill and Calendula to act as a buffer to the four peppers and 10 onions I put in.  I finished that last bale with three Purple Tomatillo plants.  Now I didn't plant any flowers over there as there is still a lot of garden construction going on (removal of a stupid ornamental tree).

With a bad back and arthritis in my knees raised beds were essential for me.  The six 12" deep beds with the squash arch and the soil (compost) ran a total of $350.  The eight straw bales ran $4 a piece for a total of $16.  It hard to compare the two as my raised beds are 3'X8' and a straw bale is 2'X3', but I suppose if you do it by square foot, the straw bale method for a 24 square feet is $16 and for the 3'X8' raised bed without the squash arch was $50.  However you will need to buy new bales so in four years’ time it's a bit of a wash in factoring the cost.  Now which is more productive we will see.  That is if the temperature every gets above 50 degree here!