Bales All Gone

Remember how excited I was last spring when I set up the straw bale garden?  It was an unqualified success.  Three of the tomato plants went crazy, the bell peppers were their usual unsatisfying selves, the parsley plant went bananas, the lettuce bolted before we had a second salad, and the butternut squash sent stealth vines into the daisies.  I planted the herbs in the sides of two of the bales but they weren't getting any water so I transplanted and then replanted them, except for the parsley which did get watered and absolutely loved where it was planted.  (more on that in a minute)  Today was the day to demolish the garden, pull out the plants, etc. before it got too cold.  We had frost last night (bye-bye, coleus & basil) so I knew it was time.  What I hadn't noticed until a couple weeks ago was just how much the bales had essentially disappeared.  They're gone, I mean, gone gone.  A couple of the tomato plants had enormous root balls and their roots had spread for at least three feet.  In the past when I planted them in the ground the roots pretty much stuck right around the plant, didn't spread out much at all.

I hadn't really paid much attention to the carrots.  They'd started to kind of slip down the side of the bale and I thought that the bunnies and chipmunks had been having a feast.  Well, not so.  Here are the carrots I harvested today.  This is about 1000% more carrots than I got the last time I tried to grow them.  We're having them for supper.



 

Now for that parsley.  I planted one plant in the end of the bale closest to the house.  As I said, it was in the optimum spot for water and sunshine and it really took advantage of its position.  Look at that thing, its huge.  That is one plant, I swear.  I've got four huge sheaves of parsley all rubber banded to hang from the rafters downstairs to dry.  (I use rubber bands to hold the stems together because they shrink as they dry and rubber bands shrink right along with the stems, unlike string which lets the parsley fall to the dirty, sawdust-y floor)  While I was cutting the parsley and banding it I started singing "Bringing in the Sheaves" in my head but soon it morphed into "Eating Goober Peas."  It seems to me that it's the same song with different lyrics.  Can that be right?  I'll have to google it.

Today dawned clear and cold.  No more patio yoga, that's for sure.  The birdbath was icy and the grass was frosty.  The sky was a gorgeous blue all day, though, and a couple hundred Canada Geese flew by in Vs, hoking away, as I pulled the plants out.

Last night I sat on the couch weaving in the few remaining tails on the Sudoku afghan and this morning while watching CBS Sunday morning I started crocheting the edging.  I decided that it didn't need a wide edge so I chose a hook a bit bigger than the one I joined everything with and got started.  I figure I'll put on three rounds.  I'm not quite halfway through the first one and hope to get one done before bedtime tonight.  This thing WILL be finished, and soon.


October 29--The Arcade Shopping Mall in Cleveland, Ohio c. 1900  Laurie was falling asleep sifting through the photo collection of the Ohio State University Library.  She was supposed to be sorting them into categories and decades. Instead she was imagining what the lives of the people in the photos were like.  She put herself into the the photos of places wondering how they would feel and sound on the day the photo was taken.  The admired the ornate ironwork of the railings and the lampposts that looked like upended chandeliers.

Well, the microwave just beeped telling me that the corn is done so I've got to go put the carrots in, then flip the pork steak I'm grilling along with some drumsticks for this week's suppers.  Toodle-oo.
--Barbara