Ok, so the plants we put out into the round bales last weekend are doing well, they have settled and we are seeing clear new growth on them, this is a very good thing an I have figured out how to water them..
The other bales have all been seed planted out and while I am a little worried about the fact that things are getting a later start then I would like, we still have enough time before the first frost dates per the packages and we have lots of ways to extend the season and the bales themselves inside are composting and that extra heat will make the plant growth be crazy wild, as long as I can keep them watered! If this works there are eight plants per bale, and they will grow up, over and down the sides of the bales into the area around it.
I expect they will explode out by next week, I have a whole week of heat, and daily rain coming.. we are racing to get more and more planted at this time, as its perfect weather for it..
The Squash bale row is doing amazing!, its rocking along, this was planted three weeks ago and ever hill has at least two plants per, some have three and I am still trying to figure out if I want to just let them be on that, as I plan to mow around the site and between the tree’s and then allow them to run over the ground and down and out the other side of the tree’s to the ditch hill, they are all very able to lift their leaves up and get the sun they need if I give a tiny helping hand on that..
Very, very pleased with how this is working out so far this year, even when bit of green show though the bedding, it takes nothing to pull it out and throw it down outside the area as greens
Just another Day on the Farm 
That’s amazing for 3 weeks. Wow!
They are coming along really well and I really like the system so far!
I gave up on my straw bales after about 3 weeks of trying. My tomato plants had long thread-like roots trying desperately to find soil to hang onto in the straw, but not thriving at all. The green peppers were not even doing that. I had some parsley, cilantro, rosemary, and a tomatillo plant that seem to be doing okay, so I left them there but planted the rest into the ground and surrounded them with straw as mulch. I wonder why yours worked and mine did not?
Well, I went back and read your post on it, and the first big difference I see is that I make holes in the straw and then make a durt/compost mound and then plant in that inside the bales, when I have done square bales like you showed, I had hubby nail together a 2 by 4 frame, and made a 3 or 4 inch dirt/compost bed to do any light seed planting, lifting off and using the same frame to make each bale top..
on the real early ones, we left the frames on, watered and covered them as early heated seed plant starting beds, worked very well..
the other thing I would ask is what are you watering the plants with, I feed my plants a green compost tea at least weekly, and a worm compost tea bi-monthly