I saw something online the other day. Old hay bales being used as veggie plots. They had planted the seedlings into the middle and it looked really great. It kept the moisture in during the really hot days !!
Paula's the one you'd want to ask about this. She's done quite a bit of research on it, even tried it at her old place just before she moved to her permanent home. As to me growing veggies this year......weeeeellll.........let me tell you about it.
Yesterday, I played Adventures in Chicken Land again. I'll be making a separate post on that, with pictures. I also picked out Spanky's pen and stall. (Bad on me, I hadn't done it in a couple of months.) On Monday, my husband took down his old turn out pen. We're going to use the fencing to split his current run in two, so that I can alternate him. Perhaps I'll even clip chicken wings, so that they can run around without RUNNING AWAY.
Anyway, I used the pen and stall muck, along with what we removed from the old lot, to start a flower bed. I placed it over the plot where we'd buried Penny and Guacho. I did it yesterday, since I knew we'd be having showers off and on the next couple of days. I layered the newer stuff on the bottom, with the older well composted on top. I figured that, this way, the seeds would be fed and stay a bit warmer when we get the cool nights later this week. I used seeds from my secret stash. Here's what I found out: cheap seeds often don't have seeds in the packets!
I know that seeds are packed by weight, so after the first couple of empty packs I started to pay a bit more attention to what I was doing. (Okay, I'll admit it. I was racing the weather. I'd not had good luck with a previous small planting. So I set up the plot, and was just scattering the seeds any old kind of way. I planned to lightly rake over the entire plot when I was done.) I thought that my inattention was causing me to not notice the tiny seeds falling out. That wasn't so. About one in 7 had no seeds. That's okay though, I managed to get about 50 packets scattered and only used my Old-Fashioned mix and all of the seeds that started with the letter A. Yes, my flower seeds were alphabetized. Doesn't EVERYone do that, when they have hundreds of seeds stashed??
Now, to answer Ryan's question about vegetables: I have more than I thought, WOO HOO!! I'd managed to dig out my gardening tote/stash a couple of months ago and had taken it out to the barn. Imagine my horror when I got home one day, and my husband and nephew had *cleaned up* the barn for me. I admit it, I haven't kept it as organized as I usually do. The loss of my dogs--particularly my little Lucky Girl--had affected me more deeply than I realized and I wasn't keeping things up. I couldn't find anything! They promised me they'd thrown nothing away, I just had to find it. While working down there yesterday, I moved a tool box. It was awfully light, so curiosity got me and I looked inside. Seeds, seeds, glorious seeds!!
I found out that I've managed to gather quite a collection of vegetables: carrots, cucumbers, watermelon, tomatoes, beans, squash, peppers and I don't remember what all else. I can say that there isn't ONE packet of corn though. That must be remedied ASAP.
So there ya go....adventures at Silver City Heritage Farmstead. As and I look at my clock in shock at the hour, I must sign off for now and get busy!
Everyone have a most blessed day, and I hope you get to recognize at least one of God's little miracles as you finish out the week.
Julie
