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2019 Hay Bale Pepper Patch

I've been a member for a while but never posted a grow log. My usual garden is too boring for that. I use 20-30 pots and overwinter my mama plants in a hillbilly winter shelter. Our ground here isn't good for in soil gardening and I've not been enthused enough to undertake the work and expense to build raised beds.
 
Now I have my peppers working the way I want and have the need for a much larger grow to supply a project. The main peppers I'll grow will be reaper, douglah and fatalii. For a couple of years I'll do hay bale gardens and heap tons of organic trash into the area. I have monumental amounts of pine straw, oak leaves and bonfire ash every year to dump in the walkways. I think this will do a world of good to make this new garden area mo'betta for eventual in ground growing.
 
I closed off a 38x38 patch in the NE field that gets full sun. This is the area I chose. The big painted guy is my fertilizer supplier.
 
The little painted guy is my running buddy and load inspector.
 
 
 

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Good stuff man, that's a ton of good organic matter. Even if the bales don't hold their shape for planting you will have a prime planting area in the coming years. I always try to mulch heavily with leaves and straw in the winter. What's your wet season like?
 
 
DWB said:
 
For now, I still have the same plans for this stuff as for dry mulch hay I thought I was getting even though this is a much richer amendment.
 
A left-handed benefit of all our hardwood trees is tons of leaves. Now that they're falling, I'm filling in the walkways with massive piles of leaves. Once they're all compacted down, I plan to use this stuff to fill in on top of the leaves and let it all continue composting.
 
But as nice as this stuff is, maybe I'll go get a load of loose loft hay from the farmer where I got the bales and use that for the mulching and leave this stuff piled to finish composting down into really good stuff.
 
 
 
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Our wet season is pretty well constant. We get 60-70 inches of rain per year. Probably well over 70" so far this year.
 
I'm becoming more confident this will work. The farmer who gave me this load of decomposing material told me he sells bales to a lady in the area who does bale gardens every year with amazing results. He sold her 700 bales last month for her next year garden.
 
I did get my 20,000 foot roll of twine a while back but haven't bound up my rows yet. I'm trying to rehab my way out of a double tap of elbow tendonitis. Never had anything like this before and it ain't fun. Maybe next week I'l start with unitizing the rows.
 
 
 
The first batch of seedlings. Reaper, Douglah, Yellow Fatalii and a few Shar-Pei,
 
In a few days when I have another round of sprouts ready for light, I'll move these out to Level 2 nursery which is a 2X3 tent with a 1000W LED array. When the plants in the 30 ml pill cups have sufficient roots for transplanting, they'll go into 14x16cm fabric bags as will the jiffy pellets.
 
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That contraption will grow a nice plant. Here are some that I had in there 1/21/17.
 
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Once I get all my seeds sprouted and situated in the other grow areas, I'll return some larger plants to grow out in here until spring.
 
The bales are doing well and feeling composty when I dig my hand down in them. They'll definitely be ready to go in March. Still need to finish the "infrastructure" with the strapping twine and driving t-posts at the ends of the rows. The good news is I've about fixed up the tendonitis in my elbows by stretching and squishing the adhesions out so I can get on with some heavier work again.
 
 
 
 
 
I’ve seen people grow sunflowers in a single straw bale, I’ve never seen a setup like yours before. How many plants will your setup handle?
Any other veggies besides the peppers?


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PtMD989 said:
I’ve seen people grow sunflowers in a single straw bale, I’ve never seen a setup like yours before. How many plants will your setup handle?
Any other veggies besides the peppers?


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Haha, I've never seen a setup like mine before either. It's all new to me since I only grow peppers in containers. I'm not sure how many plants it will handle. Maybe I should figure the cubic feet available in the 108 bales and decide from that? Input and advice gratefully accepted.
 
I want to have around 100 pepper plants and will stagger them along the rows.  Additionally I want to have some tomatoes, green beans  and misc other stuff on the bales. I will also grow some winter squash and a weird spaghetti pumpkin. These will probably go in tire pile pots at the corners. I may put a few of these plants on the perimeter bales and direct the vines.
 
Walchit said:
How deep do roots grow on peppers? Are they gonna go on down to the soil you think?
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I don't know how deep the pepper roots can grow but I do know they come out the bottom of the 15 gallon tree pots that that stand 17-18" tall. The bales are 18" tall so I suppose the roots may grow into the soil if there's something there they want to find. Really, I hope that doesn't happen because of the wilt in the soil.
 
Walchit said:
How deep do roots grow on peppers? Are they gonna go on down to the soil you think?
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DWB said:
 
I don't know how deep the pepper roots can grow but I do know they come out the bottom of the 15 gallon tree pots that that stand 17-18" tall. The bales are 18" tall so I suppose the roots may grow into the soil if there's something there they want to find. Really, I hope that doesn't happen because of the wilt in the soil.
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Roots from a plant the size of a pepper plant, say 4 feet, can
extend down many feet.  the long roots bring up mineral nutrients
and whatever the plant needs from that category. I wouldn't be
surprised to see the fine roots in your bales penetrate a couple of feet.
 
Check this article out 
 
juanitos said:
Will be tons of nutrients in your pepper patch!
 
might want to think about how you're going to support them, if they set heavy fruit they are going to flop over.
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I think they will require a lot of support. They'll never tip over a bale since those now weigh probably 150 pounds each but I can see where the roots wont get "grip" like they do in a pot or in the dirt. So far my plan is plant two t-posts on the ends of each row and run ropes in between.
 
 
PaulG said:
 
 
Roots from a plant the size of a pepper plant, say 4 feet, can
extend down many feet.  the long roots bring up mineral nutrients
and whatever the plant needs from that category. I wouldn't be
surprised to see the fine roots in your bales penetrate a couple of feet.
 
Check this article out 
Click to expand...
 
Good to know. I tried the link yesterday but all I got is a 404 error in any browser. I just figured out the problem. Now it works like this.
https://www.soilandhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/01aglibrary/010137veg.roots/010137ch28.html
 
Reading this great article, I'm thinking I may do well with my original and more ambitious plan of putting two plants in a bale and one plant in the middle of the next bale. And so on through the rows. As long as they have plenty to eat and drink they should do well and should contribute to each others stability.

 
 
I was gonna say it sounded like a Florida weave. I thought about doing that, I ended up just putting stakes on the ones that flopped over. I should probably stake them all or do the weave this year.
 
The Florida Weave looks like a great way to secure the plants but doing it by the recommendation, I'd need a ton of rebar. Well, almost a ton. I did the pencilwhip calculation and it comes out to 1446 pounds of ½"  :P
 
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