This week’s report on the straw bale gardening, went from being enchanted by the first touch of mushrooms erupting like magic –

–         to being slightly horrified at the preponderance of fungi which far outweighed the actual vegetables under cultivation.

EEK!

I asked a friend if she was experiencing the phenomenon in her bales, and she said that yes, the mushrooms were popping up, just as Joel Karsten, the straw bale horticulturalist assured us they would, but that she was picking them out of the straw. I think I will follow suit.

As to my evaluation thus far of the gardening pluses, I am finding that my plants  are doing better in the raised beds than in the bales. The new leaves look perky in the morning and wilty by evening. One of the pluses of the technique was supposed to be that the bales held moisture better than soil and therefore, took less water.  Humm. We’ll see.