Cricketk's Hay bale experiment

This one haybale has produced several meals-worth of green leafy vegie. The tatsoi has now bolted with the warmer weather and is attracting loads of bees to the garden, who are also busy in the plum tree.

The cos lettuce is producing like crazy – we are harvesting leaves twice a week for salad at the moment. It also seems to be completely slug and snail proof (knock on wood).

A successful experiment that has now expanded to a total of 9 bales.

Awesome.

The one thing I was worried about when commencing the haybale, was that it would dryout too quickly.

We’ve had just over a week without rain and the haybale is still nicely damp just a knuckle’s depth in. This is excellent, as I’ve had to give everything that I planted into the ground a drink today before they all died, but the haybale needed no attention.

The tatsoi is growing strongly. The lettuce wilted hard, probably due to the haybale still being too hot, but it now looks like the ones that survived are going to be OK. They just have to outcompete the oats.

Interior of the hay bale is now warm, rather than piping hot, and the outer edges are now sprouting oats. Presence of oats led me to declare that the haybale was now ready for plants. Accordingly, Beloved and I went for a wander through Bunnings and collected a few seedlings. As ever, I got a little carried away, and instead of just coming home with some winter greens, I came home with winter greens, perpetual spinach, catnip, vietnamese coriander and a passionfruit vine. Only the winter greens are actually going in the hay bale. It’s really not big enough for everything.

I actually feel guilty about buying seedlings instead of raising the plants from seed. How messed up is that?

So, in the end, the hay bale now contains tatsoi and cos lettuce, with enough space in the middle for me to plant something else in there – I’m thinking one solitary gianthook silverbeet would pretty successfully crowd everything else out, so maybe a slightly less vigourous chard would be appropriate. What do you think?

Hrm. It’s rained pretty consistently for the last couple of days. I checked the hay bale three days ago and it was nice and hot on the inside, doing what I wanted it to do. I went out this morning to check if it was still hot,or if was ready for plants. I pulled open the top of the bale ready to plunge my hand in, only to be greeted by maggots squirming out of the light.

It’s the same all over the bale. Maggots, maggots, maggots. Or something that looks like maggots. Ick.

Perhaps I shall wait for them all to hatch before planting my seedlings.

Trust me. You are NOT getting a photo of this.

Soaked the haybale today, then fed it a double handful of blood and bone. I’ll keep it damp for the next fortnight and give it time to heat up and die down and then plant some winter greens. I’d really like some tatsoi, so I suppose I’d better make an effort to find some tatsoi seeds or (preferably) seedlings. I’ll aim for spinach and silverbeet as well, but it’s a fairly small haybale, so I can’t plant too much. My preference is strongly for continuous harvest plants.