A Better Raised Bed

I tried something different last year. I grew potatoes in a raised bed with bales underneath the top soil. Having the bales underneath and then adding the soil on top really raised my bed. I grew potatoes in three inches of soil. I would recommend more soil on top since plants don't grow through bales until they are composted.  

The Golden Age of Biochar

We are living in the golden age of biochar. What is it? I am not going to tell you the history when someone else had done a better job than I could ever do. PDF Anyone?

One search on biochar and you will enter the world of Disney like magic. Biochar will turn your garden into a lush garden of bounty.

You can learn to build a biochar generator or maker that costs only about thirty dollars to machines that costs hundreds.

I like the double barrel method. I have to burn my garbage anyway, so why not make biochar at the same time. I made this small inner barrel for twenty dollars. It will go into my larger burn barrel. The larger burn barrel has vent holes at the bottom sides of the barrel.

I vented my little inner barrel with copper tubing. It will allow water vapor to escape without letting fire in to consume my biochar. Biochar is like charcoal: oxygen and fire can start a reaction that will turn your biochar into ash. You do not want ashes, you want charcoal like biochar.

I made my inner tank out of flue supplies. I used a short flue with caps. Do not make your tank air tight or you could be making a bomb. It will explode. I did not weld my caps...they are loose.

My first try out I use fallen branches that were half rotten. It was a success. I have more than enough biochar for a good start. You mix 1/10th of your soil medium with biochar. Biochar replaces perlite. 

This is not voodoo science. Biochar is for real. Many third world countries are using it. I always like the pictures of a field with a farmer using it and one that doesn't. Take a look at these...Pictures 

2/23: I used my biochar can again and notice smoke escaping from the lids. You probably do not need to vent it with copper tubing.  It vents itself through the lids. Good news, the can will now only cost you around $15.00.  I'm going to use stove cement for bottom lid to seal it and let the top lid do the venting. 

Make Money with Strawberries?

I tried strawberries the other year in a bale. I might have put too much peat moss in the soil mixture. All I know is that they kept sinking down, along with the bale. I tried to lift them up and pack in more soil, but they kept sinking. strawberries like sunlight, not growing in a dark hole.

I also had problems with the strawberries producing way too fast. They had strawberries (very few berries) before the plant had a chance to grow.

This year, I have some plants that survived the cold winter. What am I to do about them? I also bought some everbearing quinault. They will produce an early and late harvest of strawberries.

The quinault cost $2.98 at Walmart. You get ten plants. They are the most popular container plants. I plan on buying 10 plastic buckets and a kiddie (all plastic) swimming pool. Many urban dwellers grow right into the swimming pools. They fill it up with soil and plant their crops. The gardeners who cannot grow a particular plant (tomato) in the pool (being shallow) are grown in a bucket with the bottom cut out and laid on of soil filled pool.

Since I'm speaking to master gardeners, what do you suppose, I'll do with the pool? Your right, I am going to set my buckets with drainage holes into the pool of water.  Not so much water that it might attract mosquito larva, but enough for a weeks full of water.

If you could find a way to kill the mosquito larva without killing your plants, you could fill the pool all the way up. Maybe that will be our next study. Believe me, you do not want to breed mosquitoes in the water. (Update:http://ask.metafilter.com)

I had such a success last year with growing pepper plants in buckets, I am definitely going to go with strawberries. Maybe I'll make some money selling fresh strawberries. Do you remember how to grow in a bucket? Go to my bucket gardening Feb 3, 2015 archive.

Til next time master gardeners. Bye! PS: Could you save me your toilet paper cardboard roll? As you see I plant seedling in them. Just as good as peat pots and cheaper. I wonder if you could sell them? Maybe someone should write a book, "Growing with toilet paper." Instead of hay or straw, you make growing pots using toilet paper. Think about it. Next time your're sitting on the john, plant a garden from using toilet paper. It's incredible, but then again, I've heard of growing plants without soil, "Straw Bale Gardens . . . Do Not Require Soil" 

God was the First Gardener

Everywhere you look: In books, in television, in magazines, people are living as though God doesn't exist. God does exist. Without Him our gardens would not exist. Many want to find God in nature. He is there but also transcends his own creation. He is the creator off all things and is above all things. Nothing came into existence without him. He is there in your garden but He is also everywhere at the same time. I remember I heard from a Christian scientist that God is as close to us as we are to others and yet at the same time He is also seated far away in the heavenlies. Space does not limit God so then why should we deny God in our lives just because the world does.

Did you know that God was the first gardener? "Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden" Genesis 2:8. Even though God is above all things, He also likes gardening. He planted seed, and caused it to grow. He sent the rain, and watered his garden. Since God is the author of gardening than He could certainly help us in our gardening wisdom.

Gardening is a God-like pursuit. Something is wrong if you don't like planting and growing. There is more to life than watching TV or hearing music or eating pizza. There is nothing like fresh vegetables that are steamed cooked and ready to be served.

Please help us God in our gardening. Give us your wisdom and direct our ways. In Jesus name, AMEN.

Straw Bale Gardens . . . - Do Not Require Soil

I saw advertising that says, "Straw Bale Gardens . . . Get High Yields- Never Need Weeding- Do Not Require Soil."

I had seen an air plant before, but not in a straw bale. Every plant needs some kind of soil, unless you are into hydroponics. 

What do I think they mean by such an advertising pitch? It simply means that you don't need soil on the ground for your plants to grow. The soil or medium is in the straw bale.

People like outlandish claims. They really deserve what they get for not using their brains.  

Get ready I present to you the truth about growing in air.

The hay bale has shrunken as the soil medium remained unchanged.

I dug out the hay/leaf bale and found not roots. If there was a feeder root, I couldn't find one. Also very few roots beneath the bale. Conclusion: the plant was growing in the bale's soil medium and not in the bale.  

Why all the fuss. Who cares. You have a point. Unless you consider all the disappointed gardeners spending their hard earned money on something that only works in their dreams. I know I am a little strong. Straw bale and Hay bale gardening is like growing in a pot.

My technique is similar, However it is all organic, and I use homemade growing medium. Bales in the ground, as I teach, helps modulate the moisture that's beneath the bale. I use biochar which is famous among high-tech farmers. 

The straw bales used in most gardening taught on the internet is above ground. It will only waste water and leech out toxic fertilizers that was used to conditioned the bale. 

We do have good news, now we have organic conditioned bales being taught. My message is getting out. Organic is in. The Hay Bale Revolution is taking over. People are making their tote bales and growing fantastic gardens. 

I only suggest that you grow in a trench.

Those Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

I often wonder how to become a success on Amazon. Now I really know.  I can promise you my few followers that I never wrote a false review to generate sales. But I do know authors who have. They are famous for having many accounts and are great at writing negative reviews about the books of their competitors.

I believe the darkness of many authors goes deeper then what we now know. I really like following up on reviews. Some authors are going to sue their competitors for libel. If you are an unscrupulous author, it is time to clean up your act and destroy your false accounts.  Lawyers are coming after you. They might be at your door. Is that your door bell ringing?

When we do what's right, success is sweet. But doing evil will always come back and bite us in the ass.

Scarcity of Nitrogen

The secret ingredient in hay bale gardening is organic manure and biochar. The secret ingredient to straw bale gardening conditioning is nitrogen, "Conventional gardeners use “cheap” lawn fertilizer – look for 20 percent fast-release nitrogen – available from the local hardware store." 

Nitrogen rich products are becoming more and more rare in finding them. I think the government is making them illegal like they do phosphorous fertilizer. It's getting hard to find high quantities of nitrogen fertilizer.

The cost of fertilizer is going up and up. Will the price outweigh the price it costs to make a garden? I always say, if it cost a lot to grow your garden, you might as well buy your fresh produce. Maybe that is what's happening. The powers that be are making it a financial burden to grow a garden.

Here I come to save the day. Buy some rabbits or chickens for manure. Buy aged manure and mix it with your sifted soil. Also, buy a book on building a bio-char generator. You need bio-char. I make my own from a pot, but I plan someday to get into full time production.

Get ready America, the bio-char books are coming. It will overtake publishing like no other gardening books. Does that mean I'm writing a new book? I sure am not. How did you like the way I phrased it, "I sure am not."

Stay tuned America. I am about to reveal cardboard gardening. It has all the get rich scheme marketing that comes with sensational new gardening techniques. Truly, It's funny but I can grow in cardboard as well as those who claim to grown in only straw.

Join my Revolution and be prepared for more bans on gardening. We don't care because, We don't rely on expensive gardening products to grow our gardens.

Two Sides of a Coin

Every author gets reviewed by readers willing to make remarks. They can literally kill your book. People do read reviews. You would almost think that reviews are the hand of God. Perfect in all their ways.

I kinda (kind of) believed the reports I read until I sold books on Amazon. Did you know that there are authors posing as pissed off reviewers just to pitch their books. It sound paranoid, right? I got the proof. I save all their reviews that got removed (I complained). It is a shame when an unscrupulous author downgrades another's book in order to sell his own.

From time to time I will now respond to my critics. I know some will believe their reports, but I don't care. It's not about book sales, its about gardening and my credibility as a writer.

Here is a recent post on on Hay Bale Gardening:

Not very in depth. Nor many pictures to help explain. I appreciate the more organic ideas. I was disappointed there's were no plans in the book for building this home baler. Of course you can buy the plans...$$$

"Its not very in-depth." Any kind of bale gardening is not very in-depth. If you want a book with in-depth study...read Organic Gardening by Rodale Press. It has hundreds of pages of gardening facts. This was a short book for only $1.59. 

"Not many pictures."  For peat-moss sake. I showed three raised beds. Does it take pictures to align hay bales? Do you need photography of hay bales? If you want pictures, get my other book. I have in "Hay Bale Garden Habitat" so many pictures that I got penalized for its huge book size.  

"I appreciate the more organic ideas." Thank you. Glad to oblige. I do have more than most books.

"No plans for the home baler." I missed something here. Was it a book about building a home baler? Was it called,  Home Baler Raised Gardening?

"$$$" What is that? How much is that? I used to give away my plans for free to everyone that writes a review. I got no takers. How many people are going to make a Home Baler? They are going to buy the bales not make them. I did put in the resource link for those handy builder, but to think I would give plans after giving a brief mention, was not too bright. When a writer makes mention a shovel, do people think he will give plans for making one?

It amazes me that people will spend up to ten dollars on a magazine with all their advertising and not think a thing. But when I briefly mentioned plans for my home baler, I get accused of advertising.

Thank you for listening to me harp over the review. Let me just mention that, Hay Bale Gardening was my first book. It's historic in that it was the first book on kindle suggesting hay bales for gardening as it's main topic. The copyright is  March 26, 2012. 

Are Fertilizers Overused?

I used to take vitamins. It was said that the organic vitamins would be better to buy than the inorganic kind. Most nutritionist are now saying vitamins may not be that great. But what about plants? Can't I buy a box of fertilizer and feed my plants so they will have miracle growth?

Everyone has their opinions. Here is a home guide that will explain the overuse of fertilizers. Thank God for people with knowledge. I would hate to take responsibility for causing environmental issues. That's why when I wrote my books on gardening, they had to be organic.

You can have organic soils by using manures from chicken, rabbit, turkey, cattle, horses, and plenty of compost. Also recycle every scrap of vegetable and fruit that you do not consume.

I wrote a book for making bales out of food scraps (no meat) called, "The Honey Bee Baler." Make a bale and put it in your garden and let it feed your plants. Join the Hay Bale revolution and become an organic gardener.

Show Me The Roots

I saw a straw bale gardening expert pitching his wares in a video. He made all kinds of claims. If only I could fib, I would become popular as this straw bale expert.

Do you have limited mobility? They claimed that straw bale gardening is for you. How in the heck can an impaired individual lift heavy bales of straw? Do they want to kill the person with the limited mobility?  I feel sorry for the impaired after seeing the expert towering over his straw bale garden. He must bend a lot.

Funny! You don't use soil? It must be an air garden. Really, all the root growth stays in the bale? I've been growing in bales for years and have yet to find growth in my bales. Do your own study. Plant a seed in a wet bale, does it grow? What is that I see on the expert's straw bale....its potting soil.

Funny! The expert claims to have discovered straw bale gardening. Straw has been used for years. Remember Ruth Stout?

I'm not bashing just to sell my books. I don't get $5-$15.00 a book. For the price of a bottle of pop, you can buy one of my informative books.

I recently had someone accuse me of not including my plans for my baler in my $1.59 book. I rarely sell my plans. Why? There are lots of free plans on the internet. I used to give away my plans for free to anyone who wrote a review for my books. I had no takers.

I know I make straw gardeners mad, but common. Show me your roots.

Info from my book: "Did you know that the tomato plant maximum root depth is 6-10 feet?  In raised beds it is recommended at least 24 inches and up."

Straw bales are 14-16 inches high. If it wasn't for fertilizer used by straw bale gardeners and the ground beneath the bales the tomato plants would grow stunted.

Hay Bale Raised Beds

I make raised beds out of hay bales. They may not look pretty but I find them very useful at making inexpensive beds. The next year you can rotor-till (or double dig) the new mulch along with the raised beds and make a new one. You do not have to worry about the hassles of wood frames getting in the way of your digging.

It's easy. Just lay out the bales of leaves, hay, or anything that's a bale to form a square with an empty middle. For some plants you can even bury some bales under your soil. Lettuce likes bales decomposing underneath.  Add to your square compost, soil, bio char, manure or just about any food for your plants. Now use my super digger and dig a hole for your new seedling. That's it.  This is Larry Zoro writing, happy baling and growing in the Hay Bale Revolution.

Dandelions

Dandelion books do not get a lot of sales. I bought a book years ago that now is out of print. People don't know that dandelions can do a lot of good for your health.

Get yourself a book and a juicer.   Juice dandelions in the spring.

I like to take the bitter juice in a shot glass and swig it down like whiskey followed by a chaser of water or juice. Wow! I can see better already. For me, it does give nutrition for better eye sight.

Can you imagine that in all the gardening we do, there is a little weed called the dandelion that might give us more benefit than a load of vegetables?

I make no endorsement that it is a miracle plant, but I could be wrong.

Raised Wood Beds

I saw a raised bed garden today that was stunning. All new wood and loads of great soil. I like what I saw and I gave them a plus up in their post.

If you read about the sales pitch of raised bed gardening it sounds magical, NO WEEDS, NO PESTS, LITTLE WATERING, and LITTLE CARE.

I can't wait to try it. OH NO, I did already. I remember all the wood (I used Oak wood) I wasted in making the beds. The wood did not last but fora few years. If I continued, I would have to be making more beds.

Let's now talk about the soil you will need in order to make a raised bed. I nearly killed my self trying to fill all those beds with soil. The more I gave them soil, the more they compacted and wanted more soil.

I wish I could say there were no weeds. Unless your medium or soil is perfect (not a lot of clay) you might have few weeds. I used the soil on my property and  it made bricks of weeds and clay instead of growing healthy garden plants.

By calling my raised bed a brick, I meant the clay compacted and became so hard that I could not pull a weed. I finally put my rototiller in the raised beds and tried to dig the weeds out.

I don't want you to hate me, but my raised beds did not work without lots of hard work. I could go on about the sow bugs and other bugs that found refuge in the decaying wood bed. Insects love decaying or wet wood. Try to find the offending pest and they are off hiding in the raised bed frames.

Did you know you should double dig raised beds every year. My raised bed hated a shovel. I slammed my shovel into the raised bed and it would bounce off the brick raised bed and fly back and hit me.

Weeding a raised bed was horrendous. The grass knew how to connect to the wood of your bed and hang on for dear life. Be careful pulling the weeds around the wood or it might all come apart.

Before making a raised bed study about root depths of your plant, your raised bed might not be raised high enough. And above all, make sure you have enough money for all the expense. I know I'm cheap but if gardening is more than buying the produce then why bother gardening.

Jack the Straw Bale Gardener

We all heard the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Now we have Jack and the straw bale garden. The claims of those who straw bale garden sounds magical. Should we all get a straw bale and see if we grow a huge magical plant?

It is not that hard to figure out how straw bale gardening work.  You get a bale of straw, condition it, fill it with nitrogen and fertilizer and supposedly the plants will magically grow because you didn't till the soil.

The bale loaded with fertilizer and nitrogen will grow plants as long as it retains its moisture and  its roots reaches the soil beneath it. When the plant starts to grow it will utilize the water and the fertilizer. It is at this early stage of plant development that watering is important. If the plant's root doesn't  reach the bottom of the bale, where the soil is, it will stunt, wilt and die.

As the bale decomposes, it looks more like spoiled straw than a bale. It soon is apparent that the bale is no more than a pile of straw that rests upon the soil. The plant has finally reached the soil and started to grow more vigorous due to all the fertilizer that leeched into the soil.

Any horticulture book will tell you that the root systems of most plants need soil depth to flourish. The temporal small depth the bale supplies is not sufficient for root development.

Don't be fooled by magical gardens. Every plant needs soil, food (nutrients), water, and the proper growing temperature. Next time you plant, place a pile of straw around your garden plants, it has some benefits as mulch, but not in growing magical plants.

I promise no weeds. Really no weeds. Okay, maybe a few.

I just read in a free straw bale gardening book I got at Amazon. In this one book it says, "Straw bale gardens are just about 100 percent weed free. If you’re an experienced gardener, you might find this difficult to believe until you experience the phenomenon for yourself."  I wonder if these weed free gardeners read any horticulture books? Especially about seed dispersal. But who am I to say. Maybe nothing grows in the straw bale garden. I can tell you. There is not one spot of ground on my property that doesn't like a weed seed. If I leave my pathways unattended, the grass and weeds would keep me out of my garden. 

Take a trip to the weedless areas of your property. See how nothing grows. I hate to break the news, but the more fertile the ground, the more grasses and weeds it will grow. 

I think some plants indicated bad soil type like daisies. I could be wrong. But I wouldn't buy property that had only daisies growing on it. I did a search and I think I hit on something. Daisies are an indicator of what might be lacking in your soil, "An example is the presence of common daisy in pasture, which is often a sign of potassium deficiency (the daisy can still grow well in poor potassium)." 

I have notice that since bales do not grow anything there are fewer weeds in a straw or hay bale garden. The growing medium might get a few once in a while. But for the most part, weeds come form pathway encroachment. We need to smother, hoe, or burn these weeds and constantly maintain them or they will maintain us. Of course you could get into straw bale gardening. They rarely get weeds and also believe in Santa Claus.  

I'm a Gentle Spirit.

I got mad. When I was getting my message out about my kind of gardening a straw bale author accused me of unethical behavior (plagiarism). You know, he might  have a point, if I was a straw bale gardener. If he would have read my book, he would have know it was vastly different than what he teaches. However, authors do copy other authors' work. There is nothing you can do about it. Unscrupulous copiers  meticulously word their new books to make sure they do not exactly copy another's work word for word.

Sometimes gardeners think they have an exclusive idea but only to find someone else thought of it years before. When I started writing gardening books, I didn't even know that straw bale gardening existed or that it was popular. If I did, I might have called my book Straw Bale Gardening or Straw Bale Garden Habitat. What did I do, I called it Hay Bale Gardening. Everyone knows that hay bales are not used for gardening. I was almost  convinced myself, "Hay Bales will sprout grass." Now such a statement sounds foolish. Nothing grows in hay bales, not even grass. But seeds are another thing. Hay left in the field will drop many  seeds, but why wait till hay seeds? Cut your hay before it seeds. Or use untreated grass clippings. I never heard a person say that grass clippings will sprout grass in your compost pile or garden? If you are worried about hay, then by all means use something else. You could call my books, The Leaf Bale Garden, or The Leaf Bale Garden Habitat.

Now I am in a gardening bracket that is mostly unobserved. At least I don't have to worry about others stealing my work. I have nothing but success ahead. If you  start at the bottom, you can't help but go upwards.

I like hay and everything that grows in it. I like cutting it, and making bales. I like using what grows on my own land. I also like oak leaves, and other materials that I can make bales into. I like the earthworms that help turn my soil into rich mulch. I am a very likable gardener.

I wish I could write more books on gardening. However, I cannot improve on what works. I guess I can continue posting. I guess I'll  continue gleaning form the work that I already published. I know some will get mad, that I am giving information away for free, but I don't care. Freebies are fun. I remember a comment made on a straw bale author, "You can get all the information she gives for free on the internet." Maybe so, but not in one place.

 Let me give you a word of caution when getting my books. There are sharing sites that are distributing them for free. It sounds irresistible getting a free book. However, do you want a computer virus or malicious software along with it? You might get the book, but it will cost you in so many other ways. I remember reading about those who tried to pirate Xbox game software. Instead of being successful, Microsoft banned their game system for life. Now they have a system that is useless when they want to connect on-line.

 I want to thank those who have bought my books. It is people like you that help me test more gardening ideas. Did you make a super digger yet? I like mine. Watch the video?  

Take care till the next time..when we talk more on Gardening.

Bucket Gardening

I grew two pepper plants in buckets last year. I stuck my 8" PVC pipe in a bucket with drainage holes. I then stuffed hay around the PVC pipe. Next, I filled the PVC Pipe with soil. It sounds like a great idea, don't it. What am I missing?

I am missing the water source. I found this large tray/tote like container that I place under the buckets. I then filled the tray with water. Not so much water  that it would attract mosquito larva. The hay and plant medium sucked up the water from below. If you do get larva, just rinse out the tray. Make sure the tray holds about 3-4 inches of water.

It was a great success. I used half the soil I normally would use in a bucket and grew bell peppers like you would in a regular garden. The plants never died till winter. The two plants gave me enough bell peppers all summer long. PS Make sure to cover the top 2" with soil over the hay. It look prettier and perhaps help turn the hay into mulch.

I'm not so vain to think I am the first one to try this. All I can say is it works. Make sure to use cages. Tie the cages together and make them sturdy.

TIP: If your produce is real small...try a different seed variety. Not all plants are suppose to grow gigantic.

Growing in a Trench

I make hay bales with a growing hole in  the middle. As I feed in the soil, I remove the PVC pipe. I then place the bale in the trench. The bale has a way to wick up the excess moisture from the trench. The plant does not become drench or overly dry. 

I have not tried this technique in flooded areas. But it works great in dry areas like Missouri. I suspect that by releasing the water from the trench in flooded areas, it would still work.

Why doesn't straw bale gardening work? It does so only in wet areas of our country. The reason of most failures is because the bales are mistakenly place upon the surface of the ground. The bales do not soak up water but shed it off. That is why conditioning is very important in straw bale gardening. 

I do not support straw bale gardening. I feel it is a waste of time. I want something that works with little work.

Making a foot trench is no harder than double digging a raised bed, or watering a straw bale garden. Once the canals are made, next year will only yield rich humus that will be easier to scoop out and use. This time the decayed bale will be used with the soil medium. 

Irrigation

Today's lesson is on Irrigation. It is a practice that has been used for over 5000 years. It is basically a matrix of small channels formed in the field. The source of water can be from a well or from a natural source.

I came up with a technique that uses irrigation ditches. I grow in the matrix of small channels filled with water. Most gardeners have tremendous run-off. Most of their garden water goes downstream. The expense of constantly running the water in their garden can be costly.

Next time you plan your garden try using irrigation canals. Make them in such a way that they catch rain water and that they are interconnected. Use the canals to catch the water flowing downstream. When it is time to water, all you need to do is stick the end of your hose at the top of the canal and let the water flow downward to all your plants. 

My next lesson will be on how to garden in a trench. Visit my website at  aaahomebaler.webs.com