Food Forest building – Page 12

Growing potatoes in straw round bales

Not quite what I had expected

In a garden update post from this spring I had mentioned sprouting potatoes in my storage. I had planted these in straw bales which I use as a wind protection. Here is a picture from this spring.

The potatoes in the straw bales seemed to do well despite the heat and the drought. The plants where nice and green, unlike many other plants turning yellow. Such decomposing straw bales do keep moisture in well.

Unfortunately some straw bales fell to the side and the rainwater just run to the ground without soaking into the soil for the potatoes. These 2 straw bales did not give many potatoes and they where very small.

Some of the straw bales fell in itself and if there would be any potatoes to harvest I was not be able to reach them.

In one of the straw bales I found around 30 pieces of larva of a cock chafer very compact together. I searched and hope I found all. This straw bale did not give much yield as well.

One straw bale was partially hidden underneath a tree and had protection from the burning sun most of the day. This I noticed in the yield from this straw bale. This was a lot more then in the other straw bales. This straw bale gave about 3,5 kg. In comparison the other 4 straw bales, I was able to harvest, also gave around 3,5 kg. So growing in the straw bales this way does not give me the advantage I hoped for in times of heat and drought. The straw keeps moisture in, but the plants do not really root into the straw. Therefore the moisture is not really available for the plants. (Of course this was a small scale experiment with very lose boundaries)

The straw bales have decomposed so much by now that we removed the netting around them and have a somewhat messy pile of straw left. We will leave it over winter like this and see how much it will decompose further. I hope in spring it will be ready for us to grow food in it. For now the pile of straw is still a wind protection for the hill beds beside it.

Things grow in strange places

This mushroom is growing out of the seam between two concrete slabs

These small plants are growing hidden underneath a big slab of Larchwood.

Harvesting and processing cabbages and carrots

After the first night frost I wasn’t too worried about the cabbages, since they have a cover, but since it is getting colder the cabbages do not really grow any more. So I planned in to harvest and process them.

After going around in the garden I only found 4 small heads I could process, so I decided to harvest a bunch of carrots as well. We had just eaten the last of our fermented carrots and I really needed to make some more.

After harvest I started with cutting up the cabbages. I used the white cabbages to make sauerkraut, since my son only wants sauerkraut from the white cabbage and not from the red. I mixed in the salt and let it sit for an hour or so before working the cabbages to get some liquid out. Then I packed it in a glass. A smaller glass would have done. Since we are completely out of sauerkraut at the moment I will have to buy some cabbages to make a useful amount of sauerkraut.

The carrots I only washed thoroughly, cut of some bad spots and cut into strips. I had enough for 2 glasses in which I packed the carrots tight. Pouring enough saltwater to cover the carrots and these are done. I put the glasses into our barn to ferment. In a few weeks we will be able to enjoy our ferments again.