The farmer I was buying bales from bought a new round baler 2 years ago so I could no longer buy from him and went to a nursery to get my bales. They must have been sprayed with weed killer or something because none of them produced anything but scraggly looking plants with no fruit or what little some plants got were few and far between. I had to go to a farm market to buy vegetables for canning and freezing. This year my son made me almost waist high planters plus I put holes in 5 gallon buckets and I started seeds in my house and planted my plants asap this spring in planters. I have been picking tomatoes and hot peppers for pickling for a couple weeks now. When I was buying my bales from a local farmer, I had bumper crops. I fertilized the bales every couple weeks and once a week put a tablespoon of epsom salts around the tomato and pepper plants. At the end of the growing season I threw the much smaller bales on a large tarp and I still to this day grow my squash in them. This year I have zucchini, butternut, acorn and patty pan squash growing in them along with some cantaloupes. I have been giving the summer squash to all my neighbors because there is more than I can eat. Your plants look great. The only fault I could find with straw bale gardening is it uses more water but since I have a high producing well, it was no problem at all. Love the fact that they hardly got any weeds at all and what did grow were easy to pull out.
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