Ugly walls and shadow-problems
I have on my yard walls that goes in south – north direction and another wall that goes in the east – west direction. And the walls cause two problems: 1) They are ugly 2) They cast a shadow on the plants. Either in the morning or in the afternoon. So I thought about this problem and I think I found a solution for both of them: a) to hide the ugly wall. Make it green instead. b) to rise the soil of the plants to almost the hight of the wall and thus the plants would be bathing in the sun all day long.. The whole front-yard is made of concrete and it does not look nice either. I planned to make some straw-bale gardening on the yard. The 1st of August I got straw-bales. I could only afford to buy 30 strawbales, but that was enough for a test, so that I can fulfill the full-scale plan in the spring 2015. That is, if I get straw-bales at that time of the year. Because it was already July, I thought that I put there some watermelons and pumpkins at the about 80 cm broad stripe that runs along the wall and has soil, not concrete.
As the plants will reach for the sun, they will reach out a few meters on the concrete and the yard would be more beautiful. I do not care so much about the fruits, I am more concerned about having my yard green!
Therefore I put the plants quite near each other, even if I know that a real gardener would never do so! ;) The straw-bales lying on the concrete in perfect condition. In reality I wanted to buy (cheaper) straw-bales that had been in the rain and had already begun to decay with mold and so forth. But no-one could understand why I wanted something that nobody wants! So, I got strawbales in perfect condition.
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The south-north wall after most of the the weed is cleaned.
[You can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them.] You notice the ugly wall and the shadows?
The photo is taken about 14.00 o'clock and after that the wall is shadowing the plants even more. Anyway; the plants grew fast and so did the weed! And as you can see in the foreground, I finally got my straw-bales. Fortunately for me, a thunderstorm arrived the very next day and soaked all my straw-bales and thus spared me from hours of work and also the watering-bill in this case is zero!
Zeus had heard my prayers! |
How a concrete wall with a wire-netted fence should look like!
The soil
One day I met Jorgos, a farmer and told him that I need horse-shit that has become soil within years. He told me that I can come and gather as much as I want, but it will be sheep-shit-soil.
So I went there with my neighbour Janis and we loaded the cars with that soil. I also had some horse-shit-soil that I got from Stella. Some people said that I can't plant directly in horse-manure, but as I am not a gardener, but just a stubborn Finn – of course I did against all the rules and the result was that the inner garden exploded with green plants and became a jungle. I am not used to that something grows so fast. Last time I saw this phenomena was west of Ural, in Kirov oblast, where I lived for some years. But that is another story. |
I begun to cover my small garden and also the front garden soil with straw, so that the weed could not get any light. [Yes, I am a lazy weeder.] And also because the soil would stay longer moistured as it was not hit with direct sun. There are other good things also happenning in the garden or in this case near the wall: The worms and other insects that are working as gardeners will multiple themselves and the straw will be soil, good soil within two-three years. Then it is only to take the soil aside, add some new straw-bales and put the soil on top of them. Just add water. :)
The east-west wall
This is the east-west wall. My friend Ari helped me with putting the straw-bales at place, to conceal the not-so-beautiful-brick wall. We added some sheep-what-ever on the top of it.
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First watering, then adding more sheep-shit.
The sand and stones in the back-ground has nothing to do with the garden. At that time there were a team of constructors that made new floors for the house and needed earth to fill the cellar with. |
Made big holes with an iron bar and stuffed the holes with ”sheep-stuff”. Then watering again.
There is naturally different kind of bales, but these bales were 47 cm broad, 37 cm high and 130 cm long.. So even if we made just one 'stair', we could have made more ”stairs” as follows:
- two as they are in the pictures below – on the sides of the bales
- two on the flat sides of the bale
- one standing on the side
- one standing flat
But that can only be done, if you leave some space between the 'stairs' as you have also to reach to weed them. But you can have a gap at the end of each straw-bale+construction and you have space enough where to stand as you weed the 'stairs.
Then you just have a simple 1+1 bale-construction in the gap between "the stairs". The straw-bales will still conceal the ugly wall.
Ok, we did not do that, because it still just a test.
- two as they are in the pictures below – on the sides of the bales
- two on the flat sides of the bale
- one standing on the side
- one standing flat
But that can only be done, if you leave some space between the 'stairs' as you have also to reach to weed them. But you can have a gap at the end of each straw-bale+construction and you have space enough where to stand as you weed the 'stairs.
Then you just have a simple 1+1 bale-construction in the gap between "the stairs". The straw-bales will still conceal the ugly wall.
Ok, we did not do that, because it still just a test.
A schematic picture of an possible construction with straw-bales. Everything will depend of how high the different sorts of plants will be etc.
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You can also make the steps more 'even', by putting some soil + wood (twigs of wood) and such material between the bales.
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This picture is from 1st of September.
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The straw-bales also got some mold and fungi.
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The other side of the east-west wall
I had some pumpkin-plants growing in the garden, which were meant to be replanted at the longer wall, but as I had no place left, I left the pots where they were. They begun to grow very fast and begun to reach up against the straw-bales where I had planted leek (Allium ampeloprasum), but as they never seemed to germinate, I let the pumpkins to take over. I wanted to test how to build ”a green wall”, not to have a lot of veggies. ;)
This picture is from 1st of September.
I planted leek (πράσο) , carrots (καρότο) and peas (αρακάς). |
The same pumpkin the 20th of September. Enlarge the picture by clicking it. You see one pumpkin hanging at the fence on this side and another on the other side.
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The longer south-north wall
Even if we could not cover the wall without straw-bales, the yellow flowers and the green on the concrete floor are just something very beautiful.
1st of September. As I told before, I planted the strip of soil at the south-north wall before I got the straw-bales. And now they are reaching out in to the sun, covering the concrete floor.
I like that. |
20th of September - the same plants. If I got strawbales earlier, before planting the pumpkins, it would have easy to get some other plants stretching upwards, clinging up the metal-net above the concrete wall. And why not also pumpkins stretching down to the concrete floor as now.
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My pumpkins begun to die to the left, at the wall. Problems with the soil? Too much water? More water?
One day as I was checking how wet the soil is.., and suddenly the earth collapsed under my hand. There was a tunnel and I came to the conclusion that I have moles in my garden!
I will not use any chemicals or poison to get rid of them and if someone knows what to do, I would be glad to have some advise: [email protected]
In Finland we just dig fish into the soil and when it rots it stinks like hell and the moles leave the premises. But here in Greece the fish is very expensive, so I can not use that method.
Next winter I will tidy up the whole yard, build some raised beds with stones and earth that is on the yard. I need some 80 straw-bales to make the big concrete yard to an oasis of vegetables. :)
Henry
I will not use any chemicals or poison to get rid of them and if someone knows what to do, I would be glad to have some advise: [email protected]
In Finland we just dig fish into the soil and when it rots it stinks like hell and the moles leave the premises. But here in Greece the fish is very expensive, so I can not use that method.
Next winter I will tidy up the whole yard, build some raised beds with stones and earth that is on the yard. I need some 80 straw-bales to make the big concrete yard to an oasis of vegetables. :)
Henry