alfalfa

[dirty]

well it's that time of year. yep i'm starting to plan this years vegetable concentration camp. oops i mean vegetable garden.

after lots of reflection on last years failure. i mean last years learning experience. i've decided to blame it all on the soil. yea, that's right, i'm the :'(victim.

so because the soil here less then ideal. i'd like to throw this idea out , to see if anybody has heard of it before.

alfalfa. i read this an old circa 1940's household tips book. the tip was to plant tomato directly in to bales of alfalfa, preferable buried bales. the author claimed that if the bales where kept moist that you could grow excellent tomatoes in them.

now does anybody think this would work? for tomatoes as well as any other veggies.

i'm also thinking that this would give me a good base to amend for the following year.

[kyosa]

Here's a few sites I saw with a Google search for 'hay bale gardening'. There were a BUNCH more so you could probably find out more than you ever wanted to know. It sounds like it might be fun to try.

www.thelittlebritainfarm.com/growahaybalegarden.htm

georgiafaces.caes.uga.edu/getstory.cfm?storyid=333

www.postpaper.com/haybale.htm

[Kathy]

I grew potatoes in old alfalfa hay when I lived in WI but I can't get alfalfa down here.

I'm going to check out Kyosa's links, maybe I'll find out what other hays will work.

Dirty, if you decide to give it a try; please take some pics-they may help others find a viable way to garden in less than ideal soil.

Veggie concentration camp....

[Deleted]

I've heard of that to... but with the price of alfalfa, I'd sooner plant in the ground.

Kaza

[dirty]

kazahleenah said:

I've heard of that to... but with the price of alfalfa, I'd sooner plant in the ground.

Kaza

you can say that, cause you didn't have to watch my tomato plants last year.

they clawed their way up the sides of the cages, like sickly prisoners trying to escape the very earth that is suppose to be sustaining them.

this year i am determined to make sure the die from something else

[Deleted]

Wish I had known that Dirty... gave away about 20 bushel of extra tomatoes last year. Maybe you need a good batch of manure and to start a compost pile? What kind of soil do you have where you are? Downstate, mine was sandy as all get out, taters grew REAL well there, as did broccoli... but I had to build the soil up a bit before I had a decent `mater season.

Kaza

[dirty]

i think if i go this route i'll bury the bales at least halfway. i think that this will make amending the soil in the future, a doable task.

very sandy soil here. only the top two inches or so could be considered top soil. hard to believe with all the trees growing around here,

[Deleted]

I would suggest a HUGE compost pile. (and manure as well). Do you have "regular" trees or just pines around you? Leaves are great in compost! Then again, that means you'd hafta go round them up. I find that an easy way to gather leaves without any work is to place a decorative lil fence in the front yard that you want EVERYONE to admire... and when you wake in the morning, every leaf for 50 miles will have raced to fling itself against that fence.

Kaza