refurbished garden

So on the weekend, we replaced the straw bales around our straw-bale raised garden bed. I have to say, for something that we planned very poorly and did no research into, this has worked really well! We still have almost no weeds in the bed, its reasonably easy to keep slugs under control with nematodes, and our plan to just replace the straw bales when they got saggy worked like a charm. This picture has the new bales on the left compared with the old ones on the right. They are from the same farm, so they are made by the same baler and should be the same size - gives you an idea of the amount of compression/decomposition that occurred in a year.

When we finished, it looked as good as new! There was no collapse of the dirt when we removed the old bales, and the new ones slotted in easily. And now we have five bales worth of partially rotted straw to mulch the rest of the garden with - very handy in this drought we're in! Now I just want to plant away - its very hard to restrain myself - I have to keep reminding myself that its only February still (just for today though), and there is plenty more opportunity for frost. It just feels so much like spring out there :)