Wow! This summer has been whizzing by. So many fun times and lots of friend times. We have been camping, traveling and enjoying  just being home. North Idaho is at it’s finest in the summer. In fact, my belief is we should NEVER leave the area from May to October. Though I love the winter, spring to autumn are truly when North Idaho puts on her show.

Summer in Idaho 1 Summer in Idaho 2

I have given you a bit of a teaser about my Straw Bale Garden but haven’t really kept you up to date. These are pictures that I took back in early July of the progress.

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If you can notice, I know you can, there is a very lot of grass growing off the bales. One thing that was recommended by straw bale garden growers, is to make sure the straw farmer had gleaned most of the wheat seed out of the straw before baling. In my case, he did not and there is plenty of seed still remaining and now growing grass throughout the veggys. But guess what? Bonus, daily I would pull bunches of the grass and throw it to the chickens and they were none to happy to dispose of the unwanted wheat grass.

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Since the above photos were taken I have been picking regularly, beets, green beans, zucchini, tomatoes and cherry tomatoes. The weather has been a lot cooler than normal the tomatoes have been rather shy and have yet to hit their peak. I am somewhat thankful as we were gone for a week in mid August and I thought for sure I was going to miss my luscious tomato crop.

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Interesting note: There are “extra” tomato plants popping up around the bales and outside the garden. They appear to be the pear shaped cherry tomatoes that we buy often at the grocery store. My theory is that since I give the chickens all of our leftover, soft and rotting veggys, they must have been given a lot of these and the seeds came through their system or they just were spread by scratching. Either way another bonus!!

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This should get you all up to date on the progress of the Straw Bale Garden 2016. All in all what I like the best so far is the lack of weed pulling. They are few and far between. Next year, more bales and more veggys and start a lot earlier.

Thanks for checkin’ in!!

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