Hay Bale Gardening

Hay bale gardening technique is a low-cost and convenient way of growing flowers and vegetables. Growing vegetables in a hay bale garden is similar to the technique used to grow vegetables in a raised bed garden. If you are just getting your bales, give the bales a thorough soaking, and let them begin to break down before you plant your vegetables. Hay or straw bale gardening is another great way have your garden if you have limited space, terrible soil, a bad back or those who are confined to a wheel chair! So much time is saved by not having to weed or hoe or even water as often as well. This project was first researched by a Dr at the University of Minnesota Extension says, "Hay bales provide a well-aerated, disease free growing medium that is perfect for growing vegetables.

The first thing you need to do is make sure that you have all of the necessary tools and materials. You can make your beds out of rocks, concrete blocks, bricks, naturally rot-resistant wood (cypress is very slow to decompose), or wood treated with a safe preservative. It is important to make sure that treated wood does not have anything harmful in it that could leach into the soil and thus be absorbed by the plants. This is especially important if you plan to eat whatever you are growing in your raised bed. Other things that you will need include optional wood preservative (like sealant) or sheet plastic, spading fork, shovel, iron rake, hammer and nails, measuring tape, compost, and topsoil. All of things are necessary for creating a successful raised garden bed.

Bales first should be situated in a full sun formation, with twine and wire ties kept in tact. Since bales may be used two seasons, synthetic twine can be used to provide the most durable binding. For optimum root penetration and plant growth throughout gardening months, bales should be placed with strings wrapped horizontally and straws set vertically. The next step is hydration, the key to successful hay bale gardening. A form of hydroponics, the hay bale is like a sponge, and you can't let them dry out, or your crop just does not work. While watering the bales twice per day, fertilize them every other day for six days with one-half cup each of a high nitrogen fertilizer. Working with the bales is much easier than working on a traditional garden. You're putting your garden at eye level, you can see your progress, you can weed it a lot easier and harvest easier. (Posted by Denise in Creative Organic Gardening). Straw bale gardening is an interesting option for those who have either limited soil, limited space or have difficulty bending over. This is important if you intend to get two years possible out of each bale in your straw bale gardening efforts. Remember several things about placing your bales in your straw bale gardening layout. Straw bale gardening layouts can be placed end-to-end to create long gardens or grouped into traditional bed shapes or even set up as maze types of gardens. How crazy does it sound, growing tomatoes in bales of hay. I planted peppers, tomatoes, flowers and beans in the hay bales in different arrangements that were pleasing to the eye. Somehow I find it oddly interesting kind of like growing tomatoes upside down. In my garden adventures with hay bale and straw bale gardening I have tried several different gardening techniques. While I like growing melons and gourds in the bales both are heavy feeder so I created a hay bale/ straw bale square garden technique to use with these crops. Lay the bales out to form a square with an open section on the inside. Now it's time to prepare the bales for planting. Straw bale gardening has many positive aspects. Valerie Everett I prefer straw bales as they contain less seed and last longer but straw is more expensive so my choice for the garden depends on the best buy I can get or which crop I am growing. For squash plants and gourds I use hay bales. First get bales that still have the string tightly around the bale. And if you know where you want your garden position the bales. For more information and tips on gardening go to www.Teegoes.org

Author: Timothy Samuel

Old Rubber Tyres - Not A Recyclers Nightmare

In order to stay safe on the roads, you need to make sure that your car's tyres have good, deep tread. The risks of a blowout can be catastrophic. However, this constant demand for new car tyres means that the old ones have to come off. And then what do you do with them? You can re-tread a car tyre, but even this can only be done so many times before the structural integrity of the tyres is compromised. And then you have to decide what to do with the old tyre.

When planting your beds, whether permanent or temporary, you should begin by preparing the bed. Remove rocks, sticks, and debris from the beds and make sure that they are prepared for plantings. Be sure to allow for drainage. You can build your bed on a patio or on soil, but either way you should ensure that there are adequate pathways for excess moisture to escape. When using brick or concrete blocks, they can be stacked in a staggered fashion to allow water out of the bed. When building on top of soil, loosen the bottom soil with a shovel or spading fork. The bed should be filled from bottom to top with a compost and topsoil mixture. After this is done, rake the top of the bed so that it is smooth.Well, if you take another look at an old tyre, you realise that you have something that is very rot-resistant and is fire-resistant. These things just have to be assets.Once the bed is prepared, you can plant flowers, herbs, or vegetables inside the bed. Tall plants should be put in against a fence or wall, or on the bed�s northern side. Make sure that you take proper care of your plants in your bed, and remember that raised beds can dry out faster. They may need a little more water. Avoid stepping on the bed as much as possible to prevent soil compaction, and follow up your planting with a proper application of mulch.Around the home or in your local community, you can do your own recycling of old car tyres. Here is a list of possibilities:At first glance, a used tyre is an environmentalist's nightmare. Even though it's made mostly from a natural and renewable resource (rubber), tyres are not very biodegradable and they'll sit for millennia in landfills taking up valuable space, and if you burn the things, they release some very nasty smoke and pollution into the air. So what do you do with them?Temporary beds, unlike permanent beds, allow you to change the design every year. If you like the idea of being able to make small changes to your landscape each growing season, then temporary beds can help you achieve this. Additionally, they are easier and less expensive to remove if you decide that you would like to take them out. Wood is best for these types of beds, as the wood can easily be taken apart. Choosing attractive woods can add to the look of your landscape design. You can also decorate the wood with non-toxic paint if you would like to have a little different look. As with permanent beds, make sure that you build them at least with a foot of depth and not very wide.The popular method of hay bale gardening is getting more popular in town, a friend told him how to get prosperous crops using nothing but wheat straw, potting soil, a little fertilizer and some tomato plants "Every fall I get some bales and let them sit out all winter to get good and soggy, I plant a few every year and I've had real good luck. Another friend who was in the landscaping business showed him how to use wheat straw to garden "He had all kinds of crops including cucumber, squash and green beans, you can raise almost anything except corn, because it's too tall and the bale will fall over .2. Any sized tyre can be made into play equipment. The most basic type of play equipment possible with a tyre is to tie it to a stout tree branch and make it into a swing (it can be oriented so it lies horizontally or vertically - both orientations work and each has its individual challenges and limitations for play). Larger tyres from trucks or tractors make excellent sandpits that don't crack like commercial plastic ones and are often deeper. A 4x4 tyre by itself can have a lot of potential for play - children can roll it around like a large and heavy hoop, they can sit in it and pretend its a boat, they can turn it on its edge and try to ride it like a horse (which offers a challenge - it moves and you have to try to balance on it)... Smaller tyres can also be used as hoops or as targets. With a bit of imagination, it could be possible to create a whole playground out of old tyres. A playground this writer knew as a child had a pyramid (all right - cone, for those mathematicians out there!) made from tyres bolted securely together, with enormous tractor tyres at the bottom and car tyres up the top. You could climb up the outside of the stack or down the inside of it.

5. The tread on an old tyre is not enough to keep a tyre on the road, but it is still enough to keep a person's feet from slipping. It is possible to make your own very casual (!) thongs/flip-flops out of old tyres by cutting a piece of tyre to fit your feet and then adding holes for some rope to keep them on your feet. You may need to pad the top surface of the flip-flop to make them comfortable enough, and make sure you use soft rope so you don't get blisters. Alternatively, you can use old tyres to re-tread wellington boots or other footwear by gluing pieces of old tyre to appropriate places on the sole.

Author: Nick Vassilev

Building a Raised Garden Bed

You can save money by building your own raised garden bed. These can be used for flowers and even for vegetables. They are gaining in popularity because they are easy and inexpensive to build, making them practical parts of the landscape. Additionally, they are fairy easy to plant and maintain. They are even relatively easy to weed. In addition to being convenient and practical in maintenance, they also drain sooner as well as warm up faster. This means that you can plant earlier in the season, resulting in the possibility of multiple harvests if you use your raised gardens for vegetables. You can make your garden a temporary bed or a permanent bed, and reap the benefits of a simple way to enjoy your landscape more and even dress it up a little bit.

When making a permanent garden bed, you should make sure to use more permanent materials. If you plan to use your bed for flowers as a prominent part of your landscape, bricks make very nice beds, as they are attractive and often complement most traditional landscape designs and plants. The bed can be as long as you would like it to be, but it should be at least one foot deep and no more than four feet wide. Wider beds can make it difficult to reach the middle of the bed to take care of things like weeding and fertilizing. If you have the bed against a house or fence, wide beds make it difficult to reach the backside of the bed as well.Bales first should be situated in a full sun formation, with twine and wire ties kept in tact. Since bales may be used two seasons, synthetic twine can be used to provide the most durable binding. For optimum root penetration and plant growth throughout gardening months, bales should be placed with strings wrapped horizontally and straws set vertically. The next step is hydration, the key to successful hay bale gardening. A form of hydroponics, the hay bale is like a sponge, and you can't let them dry out, or your crop just does not work. While watering the bales twice per day, fertilize them every other day for six days with one-half cup each of a high nitrogen fertilizer. Working with the bales is much easier than working on a traditional garden. You're putting your garden at eye level, you can see your progress, you can weed it a lot easier and harvest easier. (Posted by Denise in Creative Organic Gardening). Straw bale gardening is an interesting option for those who have either limited soil, limited space or have difficulty bending over. This is important if you intend to get two years possible out of each bale in your straw bale gardening efforts. Remember several things about placing your bales in your straw bale gardening layout. Straw bale gardening layouts can be placed end-to-end to create long gardens or grouped into traditional bed shapes or even set up as maze types of gardens. How crazy does it sound, growing tomatoes in bales of hay. I planted peppers, tomatoes, flowers and beans in the hay bales in different arrangements that were pleasing to the eye. Somehow I find it oddly interesting kind of like growing tomatoes upside down. In my garden adventures with hay bale and straw bale gardening I have tried several different gardening techniques. While I like growing melons and gourds in the bales both are heavy feeder so I created a hay bale/ straw bale square garden technique to use with these crops. Lay the bales out to form a square with an open section on the inside. Now it's time to prepare the bales for planting. Straw bale gardening has many positive aspects. Valerie Everett I prefer straw bales as they contain less seed and last longer but straw is more expensive so my choice for the garden depends on the best buy I can get or which crop I am growing. For squash plants and gourds I use hay bales. First get bales that still have the string tightly around the bale. And if you know where you want your garden position the bales. For more information and tips on gardening go to www.Teegoes.org4. Still in the garden, tyres can be used to make compost bins. Just stack them up and pop in your garden waste. The warmth absorbed by the tyres means that the right temperature for beneficial bacteria will be maintained, but it may get too hot for a worm farm unless you ventilate the sides by cutting small holes in the tyres.Large scale recycling companies can recycle old tyres up to a point. Sometimes, shredded car tyres can be used as part of the substrate (basecourse) in making roads, which reduces the need for quarrying stones. Unlike other waste materials that have potential for this use (e.g. slag from refineries), shredded tyres do not create toxic leachates that can be washed out of the roads when it rains into the surrounding soils and waterways (other materials such as cullet (crushed glass) are also recycled into roads - one transport engineer once called roads "horizontal landfills"). Tyres can also be shredded and used as a soft surface beneath playground equipment - although this use can get children's clothes dirty (but the black from tyres doesn't stain).

Once the bed is prepared, you can plant flowers, herbs, or vegetables inside the bed. Tall plants should be put in against a fence or wall, or on the bed�s northern side. Make sure that you take proper care of your plants in your bed, and remember that raised beds can dry out faster. They may need a little more water. Avoid stepping on the bed as much as possible to prevent soil compaction, and follow up your planting with a proper application of mulch.

Author: Janeth Duque

Dean and Karen Northrop 3rd Holmfirth

WHEN Dean and Karen Northop took on their garden in Holmfirth, they were up for a challenge.

The garden has stunning views across to Holme Moss on one side and the wind farm on Ogden Moor on the other. It is not an easy place in which to garden but this couple seem to have their environment tamed.But together, Dean who is an industrial pipe fitter and Karen, a childminder, have created a real family garden.Raised beds are bursting with vegetables including parsnips, swede, onions, carrots, peas, runner beans, sprouts and salad crops. There are also healthy looking crops of strawberries, apples and pears.Having heard of its efforts to create a sustainable school garden, judges from the Yorkshire Agricultural Society and Yorkshire Water chose the school as the Yorkshire Conservation School of the Year.[bar] SPECTACULAR SETTING: Karen Northrop in her hillside garden at Holmfir th Purchase: www.examiner.co.uk/buyaphoto 01484 430000 ext 7778PW150711Bgarden-04.jpgAnd gardening at over 750 feet in the Pennine hills on a steep, windy hillside is certainly that.CAPTION(S):Pupils and teachers from the school received free tickets to this year's Great Yorkshire Show and pounds 200 towards gardening equipment for the school.[bar] Keep the base of hedges weed-free, feeding with a general purpose liquid fertiliser if the hedge looks undernourished. [bar] Plant out potted-up softwood cuttings of shrubs taken in May in their final planting position.

[bar] SPECTACULAR SETTING: Karen Northrop in her hillside garden at Holmfir th Purchase: www.examiner.co.uk/buyaphoto 01484 430000 ext 7778PW150711Bgarden-04.jpg

What to do this week; GARDENING

[bar] As the displays in most rock gardens are past their peak, plant fill-in bedding to add colour to the scene. Trailing plants can look particularly effective.

The couple have a daughter, Rachael, 17, and a son, Gareth, 20, who is in the army. Karen's mum is a keen gardener and has passed on her green-fingered skills.* PRIZEWINNERS: Above left, back row, from left Michelle Lewis, head of communications at Yorkshire Water, Nigel Pulling, chief executive of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society and Paul Mashinter, deputy headteacher of Carr Green Primary School, with front row, the award winning pupils from Carr Green Primary School with their certificates and prizes. Picture, above right, the youngsters at work in the school's Brighouse garden (S)Order new lily bulbs. [bar] Feed pelargoniums grown in tubs, window boxes and hanging baskets regularly with a liquid tomato feed.Fill in the space of harvested early summer crops such as broad beans and shallots with follow-on crops such as endives or cabbages.Paul Mashinter, deputy head at Carr Green, said: "This award recognises the huge step we have made in outdoor learning in a very short space of time. The children, staff, parents and grandparents work extremely hard to use the fabulous space and facilities."

Fill in the space of harvested early summer crops such as broad beans and shallots with follow-on crops such as endives or cabbages.

Great Yorks green team

GREEN thinking youngsters won an award at The Great Yorkshire Show.

Mow the lawn once or twice a week and raise the cutting height slightly in prolonged dry weather.Lift bulbs of Dutch and Spanish irises and store them in a warm, dry place to ripen until September."Dean builds all the structures including the tree house, the decked areas, the pergolas and the picnic table. I'm left with the planting!"Ninety percent of what we have in the garden we have grown from seeds."CAPTION(S):Thin out water plants with secateurs or shears and remove excess growth from submerged oxygenating plants with a rake, if necessary.

* PRIZEWINNERS: Above left, back row, from left Michelle Lewis, head of communications at Yorkshire Water, Nigel Pulling, chief executive of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society and Paul Mashinter, deputy headteacher of Carr Green Primary School, with front row, the award winning pupils from Carr Green Primary School with their certificates and prizes. Picture, above right, the youngsters at work in the school's Brighouse garden (S)

Cash for green groups; pounds 20k awarded to local projects

Byline: EMMA DAVISON

GREEN groups across West Yorkshire are celebrating after being given a cash boost. Five charity and community groups in the region - including two operating in the Huddersfield area - are sharing a slice of over pounds 20,000 worth of grants.

The green grants have been awarded by the region's gas pipeline company, Northern Gas Networks.

The Denby Dale Centre, based at Springfield Mill in Denby Dale, works with older and disabled people living in surrounding rural areas.

It was awarded pounds 5,000 to create a garden with raised beds, walkways and a large greenhouse.

Colne Valley Tree Society was handed a pounds 2,000 grant.

The group was established in 1964 and since then has planted more than 300,000 trees at sites across the Colne Valley.

Heavy rainfall and exposed land makes farming in the area difficult, and the money will help the group continue its work helping farmers create shelter by planting trees.

Other groups to benefit in West Yorkshire were Bradford's Prism Youth Project, which was given pounds 5,000 for a nature trail, treasure trail and signage at the city farm.

Working in Saltaire, the Hirst Wood Generation Group has been awarded pounds 1,600 to help it reclaim derelict areas and transform them into well-maintained public spaces.

The Wildlife Habitat Protection Fund's grant of pounds 4,990 will help create a nature trail on the outskirts of Church Fenton, Doncaster.

The scheme saw a total of pounds 60,000 gifted to grass-roots environmental projects across Yorkshire, the North East and northern Cumbria. Now in its fourth year, the initiative attracted 90 entries with the award fund being shared by 17 stand-out entrants.

John O'Grady, Northern Gas Networks' communications director, said: "We set up the Northern Green Networks' grant scheme as a way of supporting these groups that are dedicated to improving their local communities. They are the ones that make things happen.

"It's our way of recognising the effort and dedication that they make and we hope it will enable them to go that extra mile."

CAPTION(S):

HARD AT WORK: Colne Valley Tree Society volunteers planting shrubs at Meltham