After 19 days, I finally got mushrooms on all of my new bales... and a LOT of them! I had gone ahead with planting a few days earlier because I could tell from feeling inside the bales that they were definitely "cooking," which basically means that the inside of the bales are breaking down and the temperature inside of them has risen. I'm very excited to see all of the mushrooms on my bales because they are a great sign that good bacteria has built up.
While these mushrooms aren't safe to eat, they are not harmful either. They simply show that the bale is decomposing, which was the goal of conditioning. The mushrooms don't live long and disappear completely within a couple of weeks. However, if you shudder at the thought of mushrooms in your garden (like my sister Miranda!), you can knock them over with a spade. Below you can see how quickly my mushrooms wilted in just one day's time.
Some of my bales have also grown some "hair." This can be a sign that you've purchased hay bales instead of straw bales, but I don't think I have quite enough hair on my bales to identify them as hay bales - there's just a few areas where the seeds were not stripped off of the straw while it was being bundled. Even if you did accidentally get hay bales, it's not a big deal. The garden will work just the same, and the grassy hair can be pulled out (just make sure to remove the root).
My plants do not look much different yet, but it's only been about a week. All of the transplants were successful except the mint plant, which is really surprising. Usually mint is very aggressive and can take over other plants, so I'm thoughtful about what I put next to it. In any case, I still need to get a few more plants from Gethsemane like chives and possibly brussel sprouts, so I will pick up some more mint soon. We decided to try growing some onions, potatoes and garlic from our store bought food, so those are currently starting on our kitchen counter. Joel Karsten doesn't recommend this, but Valeria loves these little onions, so I'm willing to take the risk!
As this week goes on, I will keep on watering when my impatiens are wilting and keep watching for signs of growth. I added some cages to the tomatoes today so they will have support as they grow, and I saw a couple of yellow flowers blooming on the big boy tomatoes. I can't wait until I can see the fruit growing!
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