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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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CDNmatt said:
Love checking in on this  DWB...and not just cause your hay bale garden is cool but I love how you are using anything you can find on your own land or area to make it work and putting the work and sweat into it. I try and do much of the same ..Your property is Goooooooooorgeous btw.
 
Keep up the great work sir!!
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Thank you Matt. I've spent a lot of years making this land pretty but never gave much priority to utilizing the garbage, ummm organic assets until now. Generally the leaves and straw and manure are things to be burned, shredded, scattered, pushed up into piles or blown by the mower as mulch around trees and into the thickets.
 
Now me and my boydog/helper/shadow are having great fun gathering up all the debris and putting it to good use as I chuck tennis balls or kick his football for him to chase.
 
Today I raked back some crudely dumped loads of leaves from the perimeter walkway so I could lay down pine straw. I had an idea when I noticed row ends all banked up solid with leaves. Since bales collapsing into huge sploochmarks is starting to become a concern, and I don't have any shortage of organic materials around here, and I'm already filling in the walkways with leaves and manure, I'm thinking I'll go ahead and fill the walkways in solid/level full and let it all compress down together. The bales will have a hard time falling over anyway since I have them all strapped up together into full-row units but if the entire garden is level full and tightly packed, there's nowhere for a bale to fall. A lot of work but doing this with my pups a few extra hours a day is like vacation from my usual self-employed/retirement busywork. Don't matter what I do or when I do it, I seem spend about 16 hours a day working on something or another anyway so it may as well be a fun and good exercise job building the pepper garden from hell.
:hell:
 
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These two tubs in the 2' x 3'  level 2 nursery will be moving today to the much larger level 3 nursery to make room for new recruits moving out of the phototron chamber in the house. These plants are still showing the scabs and scars from my ill-fated learning experience related to proper LED altitude.
 
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They're non-woven fabric. 14cm x 16cm tall. I suppose the 14cm is circumference,. A 3¼" diameter bottle slips inside the bag with a little room to spare. Last year they cost $4/hundred delivered from China. The year before they were $3.00. They're ok for the a few pennies apiece and work well. Just have to be careful not to bugger up the roots if moving around from bin to bin.
 
We went and got the rest of the compost pile today. It really cooked down since November so it's a short load but it's very dense and heavy. Like what I have left from the last load. Sure can't complain about the price for stuff like this. Another few yards for free.
 
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DWB said:
These two tubs in the 2' x 3'  level 2 nursery will be moving today to the much larger level 3 nursery to make room for new recruits moving out of the phototron chamber in the house. These plants are still showing the scabs and scars from my ill-fated learning experience related to proper LED altitude.
 
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I got really excited when I saw you with these..I bought 200 of the 8cmx10cm but they were kinda small for what I wanted once they were filled with soil...So I bought another 200 of the 20cmx22cm for about $5cdn each 100 set.
 
What kind of demensions do you got when those are filled out DW? very curious about that.
 
 
CDNmatt said:
 
I got really excited when I saw you with these..I bought 200 of the 8cmx10cm but they were kinda small for what I wanted once they were filled with soil...So I bought another 200 of the 20cmx22cm for about $5cdn each 100 set.
 
What kind of demensions do you got when those are filled out DW? very curious about that.
 
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They're kinda like a tube sock for dirt Matt. No flat bottom. Just an envelope with an open end.
 
It's kinda hard to measure a floppity sock full of dirt but maybe a better visual will help more better? The ruler is 6 inches long and the fish oil bottle inside the sock is 3¼" in diameter.
 
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DWB said:
 
They're kinda like a tube sock for dirt Matt. No flat bottom. Just an envelope with an open end.
 
It's kinda hard to measure a floppity sock full of dirt but maybe a better visual will help more better? The ruler is 6 inches long and the fish oil bottle inside the sock is 3¼" in diameter.
 
BoeXsw5.jpg

 
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Hmm interesting...Kinda hoping the 20x22 will be large enough for what I wanted since yours seems to be a decent size, I am still waiting for them to be delivered.....I forgot to mention I also bough about 20 or so 40x36 bags of the exact same material...basically its around a 3.5 G bag once it has the dirt in it. I am gonna try and grow a couple chillis and bell peppers it them and compaire them to a regular fabric pot and see the difference in the roots.
 
How do you like them so far DW?
 
I like them. I used a few last year. They're a little bigger than a solo cup and I don't need to use a drill. They're very negotiable with the space they want to occupy. They're big enough to support the plant until it's ready for the permanent home. I don't have to un-pot for planting. Roots can grow through. They're almost as cheap as dirt.
 
Walchit said:
How much do light movers cost these days?
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I borrowed this from a friend so I don't know how much it cost. It appears to be a generic clone of a Light Rail 3.5. Amazon has similar things for $110-120 but they don't seem to earn good reviews.
 
I picked this one up still new in an unopened box and set it up 2 months ago. It ran with no problems during short duration testing. Since actually putting it into service it's doing ok but it stalled at one end sometime during the first cycle of regular use. A little bending therapy on the magnetic turnaround signal has cured the problem for now.
 
Can't see the plants in a picture with that silly blurplepink light on so here's one with regular light.
 
Edit: That LED light is so weird. Make me think of the effect I'd see if a UFO landed in my yard. Only thing is, a UFO probably wouldn't be as bright as that thing. So bright and weird I have to wear super-dark UV glasses in there so it don't fry my retinas.
 
Population has increased to 69 residents.
 
 
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