there's no place like gnome.

The straw bale garden is a-growing!

The pole beans have reached the top of the trellis and started to grow back down.  Tomato plants are huge and full of green tomatoes.  One tomato plant – a Rapunzel cherry tomato – is as tall as I am.  The spaghetti squash … don’t get me started.  It started growing out of the garden and I thought it might be a good idea for it to start growing up the trellis instead of onto the grass.  So now it’s grown up.  And then down again.  And then up.  The winter squash (acorn and butternut too) is taking over.  I forgot how it tends to do that.

So far I’ve enjoyed: cucumbers, a few tomatoes, green beans, snap peas, and summer squash/zucchini.  It’s all been delicious.

In general, most of the straw bale gardening experience has been great.  It’s pretty wonderful to not have to worry about weeding or watering.  Some of the bales decomposed faster than others and so they needed to be propped up and kept from falling over.  I’m struggling with blight on a couple of my tomato plants (Thank you, rain and high humidity.) but that can happen in any kind of garden.  I’m just hoping the tomatoes on the plant will ripen before the whole thing dies.  (Any tried and true blight treatment out there?  I’ve been using an organic spray right now, but I’ve also read that once you have it, you can slow it but not get rid of it completely.  I’m learning as I go here!)

Here’s a photo but I realize it just looks like a lot of green … which is pretty much what it is.  But proof that the straw bale garden is alive and growing … and growing … and growing.

Let me catch you up.

My dearest dog Mabel is no longer with me.  About a month ago, she stopped eating and things just weren’t quite right.  After some trips to the vet and blood tests, it was determined that Mabel needed to go on doggie hospice.  There were many things that weren’t quite right, none of which could be determined/solved without extensive further treatment.  And, the truth was, my dearest dog Mabel was 10.  She received steroids to help her have a few more good days.  In those last days, she got canned dog food and all the table scraps she wanted.  Popcorn, chicken and rice, and pizza crusts.  A batch of homemade dogs bones too.  (With extra sprinkles.)  Then one Saturday evening, after many days of her owner ugly crying, it was time to take her to the vet and say goodbye.

That was just about three weeks ago now.

I’m ready for a new dog.

My house is so quiet!  And it’s just plain lonely.  I’m so ready for a new dog.  But I’m trying really hard to hold out until December when a litter of my dream dog (A golden doodle!) is due to be born.

But it’s certainly not easy waiting.  I went to go look at some puppies last night.  (I know, it was a mistake.)  But the puppy wasn’t for me.  The Boyfriend thought maybe he would like a dog and so we went to look at a litter of basset hound/pitbull puppies.  (I know.  It sounds odd.  But they were super adorable with floppy ears and short legs.)  He has since decided that he’s not quite ready for puppy ownership … but I secretly wish he were.  Then I could play with his puppy until I get mine.

Sigh.  Until December, I’ll just have to pet other peoples’ dogs.

Friday Favorites, it’s been a while.  Here have been my favorite things of late:

Mabel’s new dog bed pillow.  I sewed it in a Friday night a couple months ago.  A quilter’s dog should have a quilted dog bed!

Dinner plates as garden border.  I loved it so much in the front of the straw bale garden that I brought the technique to the front.  It will keep the squirrels from getting the mulch all over the sidewalk.  Plus, it just adds a touch of whimsy.  I need to get to Goodwill for a few more to complete the look.  (See the newly added cream separator planter in the back too?  I’m in love.)

Planting flowers.  I went overboard (again) but I’m happy with the pots and boxes surrounding the house. 

I can cook a lot of things but -now this will sound silly- I have a hard time cooking rice.  Silly, right?  I can handle risotto but I can’t master rice.  It just never seems to have the right consistency, or there is water in the bottom of the pan, it’s soggy, etc.  A couple months ago, I found 2-serving size bags of microwave rice at Hyvee.  It’s perfect for me.   Microwave for 90 seconds and get leftovers for the next day (but not the next week too).  But at Hyvee, they were a bit pricey.  Enter Aldi.  Aldi has the same concept – two serving microwave packs of brown rice for half the cost of Hyvee.  I stocked up!

Hope your weekend is filled with favorite things!

At Red Oak Grove for the last couple years, we’ve done day camp.  Kiddos of all ages come to church for a full day, three times in a summer.  We read stories, eat snacks, play games, and do wacky things.  And we play Sardines.  Of course.  It’s the classic church game.  Someone goes to hide, everyone else searches, and once they find the person hiding, they hide with them.  We always end up playing Sardines.

Today was no exception.  I teamed up with Lacey.  She just finished first grade and she’s the custodian’s daughter.  Needless to say, we had an advantage in that we both know the church pretty well.  We were the first to find a hidden person in one round which meant we got to hide in the next round.

We crawled to the back of the closet under the stairs in the basement.  The key to this hiding spot was that the closet was deep, and if you didn’t fully walk into the closet, you wouldn’t see that there was a tiny space under the stairs.  That’s where we camped.  Right beside the quilt frames and the Christmas trees that go in the narthex every year.

People, again and again, opened the door to the closet but they didn’t turn on the light or walk in – hence, we stayed hidden.  Pretty soon, the searchers got frustrated.  No one had found us.  Lacey and I were just hanging out, probably for 15 minutes, giggling every time someone opened the door to the closet just to close it again.

Then, from inside the closet, I hear yelling.  Quite a bit of yelling.

Charley puked all over!  Ewww!  Charley puked! 

Here were my internal thoughts: Shit.  I don’t do puke.  This is one of my worst day camp fears.  How do I clean up puke?  Can I stay inside the closet and pretend I didn’t hear it?  Will the other adult take care of it?  Shit.  I’ll just stay here.  No.  I can’t.  I need to be a leader and address this.  Do I? 

I tried to rationalize with Lacey, the seven year old.  Do I go?  Do I stay?  What should I do, Lacey?  Finally I decided I had to go.  Brave Lacey agreed to stay hidden in the dark, creepy closet if I left her my phone/flashlight.  I waited until I heard no one else in the basement and snuck out.

I found a big group gathered near the nursery.  They immediately were all over me.  Where are you hiding?  We can’t find you!  Give us a clue.  Is Lacey still hiding?  I saw Charley in the group.  Charley!  Are you okay, I asked.

The group laughs.  Charley hadn’t puked.  I’d been played.  They made it all up to smoke me out.

Kids.

(But their smoke out didn’t completely work because they didn’t see where I came from and Lacey was still hiding.  It was ten minutes later, and only with my clues, that they found our spot.  *Lacey and I high five*)

Things are growing!

So far, the straw bale garden has been a fair bit of work.  I conditioned/watered the bales with fertilizer for about two weeks to get the insides cooking.  As things cook, the bales get hot inside.  One of the bales reached 120 degrees!  (You shouldn’t plant in the bales if they are over 105 degrees; I had to wait many days for that bale to cool down before it could be planted!)  Other bales never showed temperatures of much more than 15 degrees above air temperature.

I trusted the process and started planting.  Here’s the list: (deep breath) tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, carrots, lettuce, shallots, sunflowers, cucumbers, snap peas, pole beans, acorn and butternut squash, herbs a plenty, and, as of two days ago, sweet potatoes.  A little bit of a lot of things!  Many of those things are planted on the tops of the bales but those veggies that trail – winter squash and sweet potatoes – I planted on the sides so they will vine on the ground.  (I’ve read conflicting reports on the sweet potatoes; supposedly, they are best on top of the bale.  Top bale real estate was limited when I picked the plants up at the store on a whim a couple days ago.  What the hay – get it? – it’s a $3 sweet potato experiment.)

Right off the bat, quite a few of the plants died.   I’m not quite sure what that was all about.  Maybe the bales spiked in temperature and it was too hot for them.  Not all of the fertilizer washed into the bales and perhaps that burned the plants.  However, most of those things that died (cucumber, squash, and pepper) I’ve replanted with success so far.

In the midst of all of that, I installed a soaker hose on top of the bales and trenched the garden hose that leads to the garden into the ground.  (No hose to move when I have to mow!  It’s the little things that make me happy.)  The soaker hose is on a timer and so everyday, twice a day, it waters for 10 minutes.  This was how I was able to plant before leaving on vacation – the watering was taken care of!

It was also super exciting – I came home from vacation to mushrooms!  Cue the band!  Release the balloons!  Mushrooms (the not edible kind) are a great sign that your bales are decomposing as they should to be good “soil” for your plants.  Mushrooms are littered all over the bales.  And Lindsay rejoiced.

Things are growing and soon the rest of the trellis system will need to be finished.  In a couple photos, you can see the fence posts at the end of the rows.  A 2×4 will be attached to the top and then wire strung tightly between the posts every ten inches.  The wire will act as the trellis as things begin to grow and need support.

I’ll continue to keep you updated!

Clockwise: landscape fabric down; bales arrived and my dinner plate border added for fun and whimsy; soaker hose installed on top of bales; upon arriving home from vacation and seeing green things still alive and bigger than when I left!  (The decomposing bales don’t look super pretty so since that photo was taken, I added some extra petunias in the sides of the front bales!)

We returned to MN four days ago and this is the first moment I’ve had to consider sharing a bit of our adventures with you.  (And, let’s be honest, I shouldn’t even be blogging right now … I should be finishing a sermon …)  Here’s the story:

We set out for Duluth.  Two nights.  Summary: Canal Park + barge + lift bridge = coolest thing ever.  Lazy river.  Checkers.  Yummy food.

From Duluth, we were UP bound.  The plan was to camp for a night but the weather was icky and the air was mosquito-filled.  We stayed a lovely night in Escanaba after eating a pastie for lunch.  The weather remained icky so we went to a movie and then ate deli sandwiches in the motel room while watching Harry Potter.

Escanaba > Mackinac Bridge > Tunnel of Trees > Petoskey, a town on Lake Michigan I would recommend to any and everyone.  We hopped wineries/breweries, explored downtown, and sat by the water.

From here, the trip shifted from exploring on our own to seeing friends and family.  We spent a day in East Lansing, with The Boyfriend showing me his school, Michigan State, via bicycle.  We spent a few days with his family in southeast Michigan, throwing in some flea markets, canoeing, and bike riding.  From there, it was to southern Wisconsin for a couple low-key days with my mom and Jeff.  Oh, and a few horses that showed up in the yard one night.

We returned Wednesday morning and since then, it’s been church work and yard work non-stop.  A garden update will come soon!

The straw bales are here!

They took a bit longer than I had hoped to arrive in my garden but last night, just as the sun was setting, my straw bales arrived on the back of an atv.  But let’s back up –

First, I had to cover the existing garden with landscape fabric to prevent the weeds from growing up into/through the bales.  And that existing garden plot?  It was FILLED with weeds.  Pretty thrilled I won’t have to be pulling them through the summer.  (The green things poking up through the fabric are strawberry plants I planted last year.)

Next, while waiting for the bales to arrive, I began to add my garden border of plates.  Estate sales, Salvation Army, and the Re-Sale Store in Austin have added to my supply.  But I need more.  The border is not quite complete.  Meanwhile, people think it’s weird.  (But it’s colorful and reusing and I like it.)

Last night, the bales arrived.  First came six.  The Boyfriend thought I needed two more so he hopped on the atv with Pete and fetched me three more.  I’ve got me nine bales that will become a home for my veggies.

So for the next twelve days, I’ll take turns fertilizing and watering.  Hopefully, on day twelve-ish the bales will be ready for planting!

Mabel got to keep all of her toes!  (phew.)

I picked her up yesterday afternoon.  She remained a little crazy/loopy for the evening, with a little separation anxiety thrown in.  It wasn’t until I stayed in one place that she finally fell asleep.  She continues to be on pain meds so hopefully the paw isn’t bothering her too much.

Of course, she can’t lick the stitches/wound so that’s been interesting.  As long as I am home, she seems to be okay.  If she licks, telling her no will get her to stop.  She went to the office with me this morning, I’m working from home now, and she just may go to confirmation tonight.

Because if I’m not home with her … it’s the cone of shame.  I put it on this afternoon as I had to go to Austin.  She was not a happy camper.  Immediately, after pushing that thing over her head, she looked sad.  So sad.  Defeated.   I know it’s for the best but we’re going to try and avoid that one as much as possible.  I’ll continue to baby my 98 pound baby as much as I can.  🙂

That’s the Mabel update.  Thanks for your concern!

Tomorrow will be a first for Mabel & I.  I will drive her to the vet clinic and drop her off around 8am.  I will leave.  She will have surgery.  I will pick her up later in the afternoon.  Then, I will make her homemade dog treats to ease the stress of it all.

I discovered something on Mabel’s paw a couple weeks ago.  Some sort of growth that she was licking constantly.  Some days it looked like it was getting better, but then the next day it would look worse.  I called the vet.  Took her in.  Antibiotics issued.  Surgery scheduled.

It’s a tumor of some kind and the vet said that tumors on dogs’ feet can be bad news.  They easily spread and the best course of action is to get it out of there.  Mabel’s been on antibiotics to hopefully shrink the infection that was heaped on top of the tumor.  If it has shrunk enough, she’ll get to keep all her toes.  If not, well …

I’m hoping all goes well and she comes home with all her toes still accounted for.  Tonight we’re spending some time outside and we’ll cuddle on the couch (for as long as she will tolerate it).  She usually gets a small bone when she comes in from outside; tonight ice cubes will have to suffice as the treat.  No more food tonight.

Cross your fingers and your paws that Mabel gets to keep all of hers.  I’ll keep you posted.

Then he says: Here‘s what I would do – plant your garden in the soil.  What you’re talking about makes no sense.

What were we talking about?  Gardening in straw bales.

Last week, I went to the library to hear a speaker.  The speaker was THE straw bale garden guy.   I went intrigued and left sold.  I told Dave I no longer needed a rototiller.  I just needed six or seven straw bales.  (And some fence posts and wire and fertilizer.)

Fast forward.  I bought this gentleman’s book and we started planning.  Dave used his pinball-farmer contacts to get some phone numbers about who might be able to help us secure some square straw bales.  Turns out farmers don’t so much do that anymore.

He has this one farmer on speaker and I hear it all go down.  I hear him laughing at us.  Here’s what I would do – plant your garden in the soil.  What you’re talking about makes no sense.

No sense?  Okay, fair enough.  It’s a little wacky but it’s gaining in popularity.  And it actually makes a lot of sense.  My garden is basically weeds.  I can keep up the first couple weeks but then I go away on vacation or get super busy at church and I can never catch back up.  Straw bales = little to no weeds.  They don’t require getting on the ground or bending over as much (which is appealing to some).  It can help with rabbits eating your green beans.  (Grrr.  I’m still mad about that from last summer.)  After the bales are treated with fertilizer to get them “cooking,” you can plant earlier than you can in the ground.  (Not that I’ll be on the ball enough to make that happen.)  It’s got a lot going for it and we’re going to give it a go this year.

I found a congregation member who can get me bales.  He won’t even let me pay for them.  Once I have a chance, some landscape fabric will be laid over the current garden plot, the straw bales arranged, and eventually, some trellises of fence posts and wire built to hold the climbing veggies.

I’m pretty excited about it all.  I’ll keep you posted on the project and, if you are one who thinks this makes no sense, maybe I’ll show you some positive results that will have you rethinking that.  (Fingers crossed.  Or maybe it will all completely fail.  I have no idea what will happen.  And, frankly, that’s what makes it all kind of fun.)