strawbalegardens

[casino]

There is a web site and a video on growing vegetables in straw bales. its 30 min long but the first 10 min is on straw gardening. Interresting subject. Has anyone tried this method. His tomatoes look great.

http://strawbalegardens.com/

[Stvrob]

That looks like a good idea, I might try that! Good way to expand the garden without a shovel!

[stormymater]

Have meant to do this for 3 years - now. A fellow who drives over an 1 1/2 to get tomato plants from me does this & man, oh man, does he have great healthy plants and high high high production! He uses drip irrigation to the plants, groups them 8 together, one a bale, and builds a 2 x2 support structure around the plants. They are all over 8 feet tall and ginormously productive. This may be the year for me to try this out and let my raised beds have a break from nightshades... or at least maters.

[Stvrob]

I wonder how it would work using "pine straw" Where I live, longleaf and slash pine needles are harvested, baled, and sold for landscape mulch.

Two years ago.





It was fun and I learned a lot from the process.

Ted

[Hotwired]

This seems like a single year garden since the bale would be half decomposed by the following Spring. What the heck do you do with all the straw at the end of the season. I would like to try a 40' long row, but 12 or 13 bales of straw would overwhelm my compost pile.

[Tracydr]

Ted- did you plant the chard and tomatoes together? How far apart?

Originally Posted by Hotwired

This seems like a single year garden since the bale would be half decomposed by the following Spring. What the heck do you do with all the straw at the end of the season. I would like to try a 40' long row, but 12 or 13 bales of straw would overwhelm my compost pile.

You can see the bales were half decomposed in the middle of the season. They are supposed to last a couple of seasons but mine didn't. They then made good mulch in my beds. I have added fresh bales of straw and fresh bales of alfalfa to my compost pile with good results. I don't think the bales used for growing would have been detrimental to a compost pile and may have improved it. You should be aware that straw bales have a lot of grass seed in them which sprouts profusely and must constantly be pulled as they sprout. By the end of the first season, all the grass seed had sprouted and the remains of the bales used as mulch was pretty sterile. The bales had also lost a lot of volume by weight. Bales which weighed forty lbs. fresh weighed only ten lbs. when they became mulch. If you grew in forty fresh bales, the volume would reduce to the equivalent of ten bales before it went into the compost pile. It would also have a high bacteria population which would be good for your compost pile.

Tracy,

I didn't space any of it. I wasn't trying to obtain good production. I just wanted to see how much vegetation the bales could support. You can't see them, but I also had onions and spinach planted in the bales. I planted red and yellow Tumbling Tom tomatoes knowing they would cascade over the sides of the bales instead of growing up blocking light from the other plants The chard and spinach grew from planted seed while the onions and tomatoes were planted as seedlings. The bales did require a lot of preparation through the winter before anything would grow in them. The most striking thing about the straw bale method was the amount of water required. They don't retain moisture well and plants tend to wilt quickly in really hot weather. I used a soaker hose on a timer to keep the bales moist.

Ted

[matilda'skid]

Too much rotten straw? I drag stuff like that in here like it was treasure. I have been concerned about herbicides that could be in straw but evidently you didn't have a problem with that. Around here hay fields are sometimes sprayed for thistles. It can also go through the cows and be in manure. I don't know what herbicides they use on wheat. I hope it is safe because I have been putting straw over cardboard to smother weeds. I used to haul in leaves from Joplin but the trees blew away.

Hotwired get an old book by Ruth Stout and you will be craving rotten straw. My mother read her book and tried her ideas. I found an old book at a flea market. You can detect I'm not a kid.

I mentioned it in a different thread a few months ago, but I still believe "grow blocks" the size of straw bales or a little smaller than straw bales would be a good commercial product. They would utilize a mix of compressed waste materials like straw or pine needles or pine bark and a biodegradable resin as a binder and fertilizer. They would feature formed grow holes spaced properly with rock wool grow blocks for seed placement. People who don't have gardens could use them on balconies, patios, and along driveways and sidewalks or paths. Simply add seed, add water, and grow. RedBarron thought it was pretty funny, but they should work better than straw bales. I have no interest in starting a business, but someone else may want to.

Ted

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by tedln

I mentioned it in a different thread a few months ago, but I still believe "grow blocks" the size of straw bales or a little smaller than straw bales would be a good commercial product. They would utilize a mix of compressed waste materials like straw or pine needles or pine bark and a biodegradable resin as a binder and fertilizer. They would feature formed grow holes spaced properly with rock wool grow blocks for seed placement. People who don't have gardens could use them on balconies, patios, and along driveways and sidewalks or paths. Simply add seed, add water, and grow. RedBarron thought it was pretty funny, but they should work better than straw bales. I have no interest in starting a business, but someone else may want to.

Ted

You put that in a pretty little cedar box with drip hook-ups and sell them for a fortune!

[Hotwired]

I used straw to mulch my Tomatoes and Peppers before I built raised beds. I made the mistake of not being more careful about my sources for Straw. I ended up with a couple of bales of "First Cut" Straw and my mulch turned into lawn. First cut straw is full of seeds, while "second cut" straw is only the stalks, cut and baled after the seed heads are harvested. I learned this the hard way. My word of warning is to "Know Your Source".

[Tracydr]

Hot wired, are you using wheat or oat straw? I've never seen oat and wheat fields cut more than once. When they turn yellow they get cut
Sometimes they get grazed during the winter but I've never seen them mowed. I grew up in Colorado where they grew a lot of winter wheat.

[matilda'skid]

The grass that sprouts from my straw bales is wheat. I let it go to seed and think it is pretty when ripe, but it is easily removed - not like fescue or Bermuda.

[paulgrow]

I grew 2 plants (Paul Robeson/Cindy's West Va) in a bale last season. They were 2 of the best preforming plants that I had in 2012.
When I pulled the vines in the fall the ones from the bale had a 2-3 times larger root mass than those grown directly in the soil.
My plants grown in the soil were a good crop, but the ones in the bale were much better.
I urge you to give it a try.