One Hundred Dollars a Month

It’s that time again. You ask, and I pretend to know things and answer your burning questions. It really is so much fun to open my inbox and see the wide variety of questions you guys have. Reminds me that my readers are so diverse and pretty dang awesome. So keep those questions coming and I’ll keep racking my brain for answers. As always, please pipe up if you have any input or are knowledgeable when it comes to any of the following questions:

We’re moving into a rental in North Texas – an area new to us. I was thinking about doing some hay bale gardens. Didn’t you plant some? Can you update me on how they turned out? Thank you! Been reading your blog for years – love it!

~ Emily

Emily, The only things I’ve grown in a straw bale garden before was potatoes.  We went into “sell the house mode” and the idea was kind of shoved to the back burner.  Several of my readers have sent in pictures, though, with fantastic results.

The key to using bales for gardening is to get STRAW, not hay.  Hay will sprout on you, straw won’t.  It takes 3-4 weeks to prep the bales before planting, so make sure to plan accordingly.  You’ll need some sort of conditioner {a fertilizer with about 20% nitrogen release, organic fertilizers, manure, or bone meal} to help the bale break down faster and give you a grow medium in the bale.  For the first coupe of days, just water the bales well.  That will get them nice and moist.  On day three, start sprinkling 3 cups of your conditioner onto the bale and water it in.  Repeat this step every other day for 6 days {water every day, though}.  At the end of two weeks, stick your finger into the bale to see if that baby is starting to heat up inside.  If it is, you are on your way to planting.

There’s a great book that walks you through the process, it’s the same book that first peaked my interested in using the straw bale method.  It’s called Straw Bale Gardens.  It’s available on Amazon, but you may be able to find it at your local library as well.

Mavis, I live in western North Carolina where groundhogs are abundant. I’m having a really hard time keeping them out of my raised beds. They burrow under the fence and eat everything except the peppers! HELP!

~Page

While I have never had a groundhog problem, I’ve had a reader ask about gophers, and researched a couple of options for her to try.  I think I would apply the same general principles to groundhogs.  The only other thing I would add–and brace yourself, because it’s a lot of work, is that I would probably take the time to line the bottom of  your raised beds with chicken wire, so they can’t pop up underneath the beds and destroy the root system.  In fact, if any of you are building raised beds this year, take the precaution now.  It is so much easier than moving the dirt later.

Mavis–I love your raised beds. But I never saw a post about how you made them. Care to share the building process? Thank you so much!

~Jennifer

First off, thanks!  Second, here is the tutorial.  The key is to volunteer to take pictures while your husband makes them. 😉

Hi Mavis. I highly recommend the movie Batkid currently playing on Netflix. It is the sweetest movie about a young boy’s Make-A-Wish to become batman for the day and how the entire city of San Francisco made it so very special for him. This is such a feel-good, joyful movie. Check it out!

~Mona

Mona, thanks for the suggestion.  I like this kid already.  I’ll put it on the list immediately.

Hi. I am wanting to plant strawberries in rain gutters this year, and was wondering what sort of success you all had with this method. I picked up 25 bare-root plants from a local farmer for $5, and I don’t want to tear up my yard any more than I have to, as my yard is about the size of a postage stamp, lol. Any info you could provide as to your success would be very helpful. Thank you!

~Melody

Melody, I get this question a lot, and the truth is, I have found that I found that in the ground is best for strawberries, as far as yield goes, but gutters are fun, and do still produce.  If space is an issue, go with the gutters, you’ll get berries, just not as many.  If you are looking to make big batches of jam, it’s time to take a rototiller to your postage stamp.  🙂  You can always use them as ground cover in your beds too, rather than tear up any more of the yard.

Well, that does it for this installment for Ask Mavis–I hope I’ve helped…or at least not hindered.  Carry on.

~Mavis