Slacksteaders Hay Bale Garden Project
Part One
The First 12 Bales
A few weeks back I entered a contest run by one of the founders of the Steemit Homesteaders Slack Group @greenacrehome. I won the 50 SBD with this entry where I had planed to make the prize part of the funds towards an experimental hay bale garden to grow as much food as possible over the long growing season here in Australia.
Yesterday I made the first purchase of 12 bales of mulch hay from our regular guy. His property is about 25 minutes out of town so I thought I would be nice to start off the project with some photo's of the countryside in my local area.
On this short trip we saw three wallabies, one kangaroo and a Wedgetail Eagle. Though I didn't get any photographs of them. It's been very dry and unseasonably hot here so the wildlife graze on the road verge because it's the freshest grass for miles.
I've now got to make sure I've got some level ground to get them setup and composting down. These 12 will be down the bottom of the garden as the original site is still not getting enough light and I might need to prune the mango tree before it will be any use at all.
To get them nice and hot I've got a bio tea ready and I'm trying to get some coffee grounds or other high nitrogen catalyst to really get them cooking up fast and hot. But that will be in the next part. I'll try to get a post about this project out twice a week while the setup is being done at least.
I hope that you will enjoy this journey with me and for my northern hemisphere friends, you are welcome to share my season with me through out your winter months. If there's any specific plant you'd like me to grow drop a comment or find me on Slack. How about this for an Idea if you would like to shoot me ONE SBD for the Seeds, I'll name the plant after you and for the rest of the season will include your plant in every garden update! Sounds like a fun idea right?
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@overthewait
What are you waiting for?
I have been looking forward to this post! Great pictures!
"I love this photo, dirt road to nowhere?"
I like to see it as a road to ANYWHERE!
I would also like to get some seeds planted in those bales! Can I get a Watermelon for @wholesomeroots? If it doesn't grow well there pick one of your favorites instead! I'll transfer 1 SBD now!
Hi Bryan, good to see the journey to the bales. Looks dry there, do the farmers have to irrigate to grow the hay. Or does it get sorted with a rainy season?
Love the idea of having 'named' vegetables grown on the other side of the world 😎
One SBD sent over for something beginning with P - maybe Pennsif's Pumpkins 😊
Not sure if pumpkins grow well where you are - if not some other P veg - parsnips, peas, peppers...
I love bale gardening! It produces extremely well!
This sounds very interesting, can't wait to read about the details of this fast-composting mulch-planting method. And I LOVE the idea of adopting one of your plants! I'll send the SBD over to you right away. Question is what plant shall it be? Since both @pennsif and @whoesomeroots asked for a squash type, I'd like to continue with something that could be a good companion to them: Do you have any nice variety of corn? Some blue corn would be great, but whatever strikes your fancy. Popcorn? Then you'd only need some beans to complete the three sisters. You are going to plant them together, aren't you?
Can't believe how dry Queensland has been of late! You're supposed to be tropical!!
That's a good price on the bales. Are mulch bales lower quality than fodder bales?
It is so good to see this project underway. I really look forward to seeing how much food you can produce. WIll you keep close tabs on everything you harvest from them for me, pretty please? I'm a numbers person and I looooove that kind of stuff.
Nice project and also nice photos:-)
Oooohhh, this is going to be a fun project to watch! With a dozen bales, you should get a fairly decent amount of space for a good variety of plants.
don't all roads lead to somewhere or some place ? :) nice post great idea having a plant named after a steemer :D I look forward to the updates and hope I get to see them on time :) thanks for sharing