Growing Heavenly Gardens
by Tomas Fernandez Lesson 3: Types of gardens
Praise Garden verse is from:
Ecclesiastes 2:5-6 I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of
all kinds of fruits: I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that
bringeth forth trees.
Okay, I hope everyone is getting
excited about growing our own food. Have
you ever stopped and wondered how our poor ancestors did it? Could you forge,
harvest, and store your food?
That’s one of many motivational
thoughts that should inspire us to get into gardening. Here are some challenges
as to why it may seem too difficult to have a garden, but you should know by now,
adversity produces an opportunity for our God to create a path. Let’s have
faith enough to say, the garden is one of God’s ideas and He will help us grow
one. He still enjoys garden walks with his children!
One of the big show stoppers is, I
live in a small space and I don’t have the plows and rototillers that are
needed to turn the earth up….now what?
Well, I’m excited to introduce three
wonderful gardening concept concepts; straw bale gardening, , square foot, and
barrel container gardening. This week we’ll feature the straw bale gardens and
next time we’ll discuss the square foot gardens and the barrel containers.
Straw bale gardens can be put just
about anywhere, even on a patio deck, their size is adjustable according to
your needs and best of all they require no digging. I have pictures from start
to finish on the web site of both kinds that I constructed on my farm in
Madison. Here are some of the benefits:
Straw, (not hay – hay has grass seeds
galore and straw has none), is an incredible insulator of warmth and moisture,
which is ideal for starting and sustaining plants.
Straw bales create a raised bed
garden which is much easier to cultivate and harvest, (you’re not bending over
as much).
Straw bales can last approximately
two years and when they are all broken down and rotten, they are simply turned
back into the garden – no waste!
Straw bales deter crawling insects,
because they don’t like climbing their rough side walls. They also shelter
worms within the beds and everyone knows worms are a gardener’s best friend.
Straw bales rows used in garden can
be individual or in lengths you determine.
Straw bales used in the Straw bale no
dig garden bed – are relatively
in-expensive, approximately $4.00 a bale. In my demo I used 8 bales and produced
a growing space of 38 x 75”.
In a system of creating a layered
fill the no dig bed is ready to plant as soon as you’re done filling it with
the layers. In contrast to the straw bale rows which need the bales to be conditioned
over a couple of weeks before planting. See links for step by step photos.
Thank you, once again, this is Tomas Fernandez, please join me
next time for more on growing heavenly gardens. Read more at WPRZ.org
Links for straw bale gardening:
Couple of important reminders, use
organic planting medium and fertilizers. The Fertilizer should be nitrogen
rich. This film is short and doesn’t include creating trellises for tomatoes or
climbing growth. For these look at my face book page.
(Highly recommend this fellow with
his 40+ years of gardening know how)
You may schedule a small group visit
if you wish. If you need assistance with your personal garden please consider
hiring your host, Tomas and you may contact him through face book.
Praise Radio
where this information originally aired:
