This week, I've been conditioning my bales each day. The conditioning process is what helps the bales to break down inside and create the ideal environment for planting. The strings around the sides of the bale keep it bound tightly together. The outside of the bale acts as a container for the inside of the bale, which is essentially composting. The heat that builds inside of the bale kills off harmful bacteria and creates an environment that plants love.
This is accomplished by watering daily and adding high nitrogen fertilizer on an every other day schedule. The process typically takes around 10-14 days, and I'm already getting anxious to see signs that my bales are "cooking." Mushrooms sprouting on the outside of the bales are a great sign that the bales are ready for planting. Basically anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE mushrooms. However, these are not the edible kind (or the psychedelic kind!).
I haven't seen any mushrooms on my bales yet, but I am diligently watering each morning. While some gardeners are able to add soaker hoses in their bales and set automatic timers for watering , city-living doesn't really allow for this type of set up. However, even as someone who definitely doesn't define themselves as a morning person, I don't mind spending a few minutes in the sun watering my garden and watching for signs of progress. My supervisor makes sure that I am thorough ;)
While this part of the process isn't the most exciting, it is crucial to the success of a straw bale garden. In the meantime, I'm reflecting on the people who have inspired my love of gardening. Two of those people are my maternal grandparents. My Grandma Watkins had a beautiful flower garden right outside of her house each year and many plants surrounding her house in southern Minnesota. She could often be seen dashing out of the kitchen in the morning to chase the damn squirrels and rabbits away! She was a very loving, feisty woman and I think about her often.
My Grandpa Watkins owned a salvage yard and he dedicated a large portion of it to vegetable gardening. His sweet corn was so deliciously sweet - I have never tasted a better cob of corn. My family and I would spend hours in the summer harvesting, shucking and cleaning the corn off of the cobs to freeze and use throughout the year. It was impossible not to sneak bites of Grandpa's sweet corn as we helped to prepare it for later!
As the next week progresses, I will be watching closely for mushrooms sprouting on my bales and planning which vegetables to plant. I've never tried growing corn in straw bales and I'm not sure I've seen it done, but now the craving has set in... research will be necessary!
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