The fertilizing period is done, and since I was out of town last week, we waited one extra week and got our plants and planted them on Saturday (4/18). Sometime over a week ago, I got a couple soaker hoses and then re-arranged the bales so there wouldn’t be any gaps – it turned into a big “S” shape. There were actually 2 bales that I had forgotten about on the side of the house that I included in the layout, but they were not part of the fertilization plan. I may start fertilizing them and plant something late in them.

So far the plants consist of: 3 varieties of tomato, 2 varieties of green bell pepper, red and white onions, strawberries, and parsley. I have potatoes that will be added into the middle of all the bales and I want to get more herbs to plant in the sides. I am also planning on getting one more tomato variety and there is one bale still unused – maybe garlic or something, I’ll have to make a trip to the greenhouse and see what they have. I might see about planting a vine plant or two in the ends – pumpkins and cucumbers?

Maybe I can insert a table to illustrate the layout:

We also moved our compost – it was in a circular bin near our deck, but I thought it would work well to just pile it in the gaps between the S pattern of the bales, so we did. If we still live at this house next year, we should have a pretty good amount of compost and could even make a regular raised-bed garden. The bales will have decomposed by the fall and can get stirred into the compost, along with old vegetable matter.

That’s it for now – hopefully potatoes (russet, red, and yellow) will be planted by EOD and maybe more herbs.