Well, we have embarked on yet another gardening adventure ... or is it two more gardening adventures ... or is it three?? hmmmm Whatever the count, we are moving forward with our usual blind leading the blind way. Nothing is too difficult to achieve. Is it?
Gardening adventure #1 - straw bale growing. This is essentially exactly like it's name suggests, growing things in a straw bale. Sounds simple, right? We thought so plus it was an inexpensive way to use the vast expanse of concrete that was our driveway as a gardening area without the work of tearing up thick concrete and building new raised beds. So, off we went and bought ourselves some straw bales. They are cheap here. $5 each. (Sometimes it pays to live in farm country.) Then we did some research and some more research and some more research ... and decided it maybe wasn't quite as simple as we thought but it was still simple enough to try.
We set the bales up in the driveway, grain ends up baling wire wrapped around the sides. At first we put three in a long line and began the week long process of getting them ready to plant. For three days, we watered the bales. Yep, you heard me right. We watered the straw bales. And yes, I felt completely ridiculous doing so. Our driveway is visible to at least six neighbors without them even leaving their properties so I guess it's a good thing that they all think we're nutso anyway. Then for five days we fertilized AND watered the bales, as if watering the bales wasn't goofy looking enough.
Finally, we used the sawsall and cut v shaped trenches in the top of each bale about six inches wide and deep, filled them with some garden soil, and plopped in some of those overgrown squash plants along with a trellis. And true to Oklahoma weather, two days later we got freezing temps. So, then we wrapped everything in plastic sheeting and added some hot water bottles and believe it or not, several freezing nights, a freak snow storm, and a day of sleet later, the squash are still growing strong. I'm impressed even if you aren't. Lol.
Gardening adventure #2 - growing fodder for the birds. This was a no brainer decision. We've been spending way too much money to feed all those critters who've moved into our hearts and minds and had to find a new way to feed to lower our costs OR get rid of some of the critters. Getting rid of critters, needless to say, was not going to happen so ... We found fodder. Basically fodder is grains that are allowed to sprout and grow for six days and then fed out. Supposedly it has a higher nutrition value and is more easily digested than other forms of feed. I don't know about all that scientific stuff. I'm the black sheep artist in a family of scientists, after all. But I do know that my animals LOVE it. They swarm me to get their share. We started small just to see what was involved by just sprouting in bowls in the kitchen but have now moved to growing in large plastic trays and buckets.
Our logistics involve around 350 lbs of animal and we feed out at a 4% rate. So we start with 3 lbs of grain (we mix oats, wheat, sunflower seeds, and a mixed plot spike) and end up with around 12 - 14 lbs of feed. It makes a huge relief in our feed bill.
Gardening adventure #3 - a Thomas Jefferson garden. We both read "A Rich Spot of Earth" by Peter J. Hatch recently, cover to cover with enthralled rapture and it sparked the idea to dedicate one of our raised garden beds to growing just vegetables that were grown by Thomas Jefferson. It's been a fun project to research but there are a lot of books that I'd like to own and read about his gardens, especially the one that includes his diaries and journals. We included in our bed tennis ball lettuce, mexican sour gherkins, costoluto genovese tomatoes, scarlet runner beans, asparagus beans, and white scallop squash which Jefferson called Cymlings. It's all planted now so fingers crossed it all grows and produces. The scallop squash I started about three weeks ago, so they are nice and big now but everything else went in the ground as seeds today. I'll have to post pics as everything fills in.
Probably the most interesting thing about this project has been the research into what we now call "heirloom" seeds. There is a raging debate among gardeners here in the good ol' USA about the use of heirlooms, hybrids, or GMO's. Personally, I think there's a whole lot of hype in the arguments and not much truth being given out. I try to stay out of it because some of the ignorance gets me hot under the collar. But it has made what I've found through research into seeds and gardening and ancient seed varieties so much more interesting. Like - Did you know ...
- all orange carrots are a hybrid that were created in the Netherlands in the 1500's. Before that carrots were purple, white, and occasionally red. Hmm.
- cabbage and all it's variants have been eaten for over 5000 years and have been being hybridized for that long too.
- most of what we consider garden staples today like potatoes, tomatoes, and beans weren't commonly grown until after the 1700's. Before that they were unknown to most of the world and were widely considered poisonous until the mid to late 1800's.
I could go on and on but I guess I'll end this for the night. No pics this time. Nothing real exciting to see except piles of dirt and straw bales. Hopefully next time I post I'll have more visual matter to include. Night all!
