{"id":2031,"date":"2011-04-05T09:13:30","date_gmt":"2011-04-05T15:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/?p=2031"},"modified":"2011-04-06T08:27:07","modified_gmt":"2011-04-06T14:27:07","slug":"straw-bale-gardens-number-2-and-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/straw-bale-gardens-number-2-and-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Straw Bale Gardens Number 2 and 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/20110404-101158.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/20110404-101158.jpg\" alt=\"20110404-101158.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-full\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>After barely missing the star role in a slap stick comedy\/tradgedy, as the shovel set in flight by the airborne straw bale came close to whacking me, then narrowly avoiding poking out my left eye with the branch of the butterfly bush I was pruning, my front driveway area is looking much nicer.  So much for peaceful gardening.  It was more like &#8220;Momma&#8217;s Day Out!&#8221;&#8230; which is why the kids try to keep close tabs on me.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m adding two more straw bale gardens this year, in locations that needed a boost.  Since they were filled and covered a with soil dug from the chicken pen, I&#8217;m not worrying about letting them compost before I plant.  One of them already has potatoes in it.  The other will get some flowers or lettuce while it waits for squash.<\/p>\n<p>I also divided and planted some comfrey in the area of straw bale garden 2.  My chickens think it is candy, and I think they are nice looking plants.  I had a panic moment, however, right after I had transplanted.  The chickens&#8217;s necks exhibited amazing elasticity and they began to eat the small plants.  The plants were going to be ingested within a matter of minutes unless I acted quickly.<\/p>\n<p>The new straw bale garden had some loose, available leaves of straw on the end of the bales.  I managed to fit thin sections between the comfrey and the fence.  Fortunately, chickens have very small brains.  The moment they couldn&#8217;t see the comfrey, it didn&#8217;t exist.  Once the plants are large enough, they will provide a nice snack for the chickens, as well as add softness to the fence lines.<\/p>\n<p>I have also spread straw in between some of the raised beds to help keep down weeds and provide a dry floor for my ripe tomatoes to rest on.  I&#8217;ll add more later in the season.  I find that the ripe tomatoes keep much longer which they aren&#8217;t hitting the dirt.  I also seems to help keep the pill bugs away.  They don&#8217;t seem to like to crawl through straw. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/20110405-055135.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/20110405-055135.jpg\" alt=\"20110405-055135.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-full\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After barely missing the star role in a slap stick comedy\/tradgedy, as the shovel set in flight by the airborne straw bale came close to whacking me, then narrowly avoiding poking out my left eye with the branch of the butterfly bush I was pruning, my front driveway area is looking much nicer. So much [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2031"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2031\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}