Attn: All you Gardeners out there

[Valerie]

I vaguely recall hearing something about straw bale gardening last fall.....then it just fell out of my head like a lot of other things...haha.

Was on another website today looking for greenhouses & raised gardens etc...and came across Straw Bale Gardening...... just curious if anyone has tried this out & how successful was it?

I did a pretty big garden last year & realized that if my hus doesn't want to help me in the garden, I need to scale back........so am thinking of trying the

straw bale gardening.

Anyhoooooo....anyone with any expertise at this type of gardening & can you give me some helpful hints?

Thanks ......

Valerie

 

[Crabby-Chicken]

I haven't tried it.But looked into it last year! Maybe... Looks coo.

I asked for a raised bed last February for my birthday. I got a pile of wood, and the text my husband sent to my phone was " some assembly required". HA!!! thought he was joking! Flash forward to THIS February. There the boards sat until a week before my other birthday.Guilt got to him.He finally screwed them together. But now it sits waiting for dirt. I had him separate the boards so I actually have TWO raised beds one foot deep. And about 4 feet wide and 12 feet long. Empty,,, but nice!

I will be able to drive by and see how your straw bales do!!!!

 

[Valerie]

Ken finally got home from work and I asked him where I had heard about the straw bale gardening...he goes, I told you about it..... I went oh, ya, I remember someone saying something. (Gee, I wonder if he felt like I do when he "listens" to me...) haha.

Yep, I am going to do a little more research on the net and see if I can get some straw bales tomorrow....with all the rain we are having it shouldn't take long to get the bales ready for mulch and planting, etc..........

Kim, that sounds like Ken...........we have been wanting to rent a wood chipper to get rid of all the fallen branches.........well as you can tell when you drive by they are still waiting......

 

[liltnt]

I saw a project recently using 4 inch pipe for things like lettuce. The pipes are raised off the ground which would be nice for less bugs eatting your vegies. Then watered with a drip system. It really looked interesting i will see if I can find the web site.

 

[gimp]

I did it last year and it worked great! I will double the bales this year. It is easy and at the perfect height. One bale was my salad greens. Another had tomatoes and peas. A third had beans and cukes. This winter the bales were turned to mulch.

At the beginning I had to do a bit of haircutting as the straw seeds grew. I was a bit worried about planting the tomato plants, but just grabbed a handfull of straw to make a hole. It was toasty warm in there and the tomatoes went crazy. I will be starting my bales in the next week or two.

Go for it!!

 

[Minimor]

I haven't tried it, but now that I know about it I will be doing it this year!

I just happen to have some straw bales that aren't much good for anything else, and lining them up in the yard will be easier than loading them onto the truck & hauling them to the dump! Planting plants in them will be a lot easier than trying to dig up some ground by hand (no rototiller here!) so that I can plant a regular garden. And if there are no weeds....and there will be no cutworms in the bales....this looks like the way to do my gardening!!

 

[Valerie]

Oh thanks for the encouragement Gimp.......ok, I will plan on finding some straw bales tomorrow & start conditioning them.......

 

[Marty]

Here ya go guys!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m59ZnlSDQGA...feature=related

 

[Valerie]

Oh yea Marty......you are the queen of finding things on U-tube...........

I had to go get some things from the nursery for "cooking" the bales....but haven't started the process yet, since I have to make a trip to Oregon this weekend.....don't want to leave this project in the middle of starting it....so my bales are all outside getting rained on, which is not going to hurt them any.

I did do some starts also, so need to plan accordinging and get my starts going really well too...... so much to do and so little me to go around....haha. It would be a miracle if I would get atleast one of my projects done..... I must say the gardening seems a lot more fun than the wallpaper removal I am currently doing in my bedroom.... "wallpaper should be outlawed".....