Strawbale Garden 2014 - Ready to launch!

OK, the 40 straw bales may have been a bit much, but we have had such good results the last 2 years that we decided to jump in with both feet.

This is after some bales were already removed. We were fortunate that a friend had use of a trailer...plus his son was home from college. It made the "getting the bales home" process much easier.

Front yard directly behind mailbox. We saved our newspapers for months and placed about 6 layers of paper under the bales. It really helps to wet them down as you go. Otherwise the slightest breeze will toy with your efforts, which can be very frustrating. These bales will be slightly repositioned before we start the "seasoning" process.

These are just on the other side of the fence from the last picture. This is where we will plant our tomatoes, with basil in between the tomatoes and marigolds planted in the sides of the bales. Basil is a great companion plant to tomatoes as the tomato plants grow better and the fruit tastes better. The marigolds help keep pests away - plus it looks cool :) The white buckets against the fence have newly planted asparagus. It will be a few years before we will have a harvest.

You caught me! No bales in this picture. This is our front patio with our new rosemary alongside. We have onions in the pot on the left and a plant that attracts bees in the pot on the right. Against the window you can see our mint plant.

Many of our seeds have sprouted and seedlings are doing well. Some of the beans got a little leggy when they were in the other room, but they are doing much better now. We will start hardening them off before long.

We added these two bales close to the patio and will probably have flowers and herbs...and who knows what else. These are our impulse bales.

 We more-than-doubled the number of bales in the large section of the front yard. These will have squash, beans, chiles, cabbage...and lots of other stuff.

No bales here, either. However, the apple tree is blossoming nicely and doesn't seem to have been affected by the freeze the other night.

Backyard bales will have flowers, herbs, beets, and cabbage.

The flagstone patio is coming along. It is slow work digging in this ground! The flagstone you see will be moved so we can dig out, add sand, then put it back. We're working on figuring out details of how we are going to finish off the fire pit. When it is done, that shallow part (like the bottom of a keyhole) will be fore Dutch oven cooking.

 The xeriscaped portions of the yard are doing great! The hesperaloe (also known as red yucca) are sending up all kinds of flower spikes. Different varieties of salvia are flowering, too. I can't wait for more blooms!

We will start treating our bales, and I will post updates of how that goes. Before we can do that, I need to buy some landscape cloth (we ran out of newspaper) and some high-nitrogen fertilizer.

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into the progression of our yard. Updates will be added soon!