strawbale gardening

[trudy]

I'm wanting to try this this year on a small scale. I'm very intrigued with the method.
Strawbale Gardening
I'm not a member there, but have it bookmarked as a reference. Anyone else ever done this? I'd love to hear your results. T

[Compost Pharmer]

I believe Jack, from New Zealand, told us and showed pics of this last year. Looks like a good way to grow a garden if you don't have a lot of space. Just make sure that the bales don't have pesticides in them.

[Adeltia]

We tried it with Zucc's and had great results. Although no straw we tried it with hay. i like the fact that i didnt have to bend over plus i was very Pregant. i had four bales 4Zucc's 2 to each bale and 2 hot peppers 2melons on the other 2 bales. They were beautiful, but we got a whole years whorth of rain in 1 month and got flooded out. The flood took my bales. We did get about 30 zucc's before it happned, and watering them with compost tea. I say try it you'll like the results.

[Wrennie]

Heres a member at SSH who tried it
straw bale gardening

**** link wasn't working Wrennie, I phixed it ******

[peachfly]

trudy...i went to the website you mentioned and read/looked at all 11 pages on strawbale gard...what a great idea...i printed out a couple of pages and gave them to DH to read...told him i wanted to try it this year...i was going to dig up more of the backyard, but this will be much easier--our backs aren't what they used to be and they were never great...

i won't use miracle grow but there are several liquid organic fertz. at peaceful valley, johnnys and probably other sites that i'll try...i figure i can use compost around the plants when i put them in the bales...i usually buy my bales in the fall--as occasional additions to compost and mulch in the following year's garden...i hope i can find some now...

thanks for the info...

[Compost Pharmer]

Thank you peachfly for not using Miracle Grow. During the growing season. give your plants some compost tea. Spray it on both the top and bottom of the leaves. You will be surprised how much better they do. Some weeks I will foliar feed twice a week.

[trudy]

Thanks yawl for your input. I went out an counted my bales I've collected over the winter an have 9. I mostly want to plant yellow summer squash an zukes, maybe some other stuff. Ya know it don't take many of those usually to make a good crop.

[oh2fly]

We tried it last year with flowers. It worked pretty good. I was reading that the bales would be better the next year. So, I was ready to move my 2 bales last week to my new garden from the back lawn and discovered that a whole winter of rain here made those 60 lb. bales weigh over 300 lbs. I about broke my back trying to get the first one in my wheel barrow. Not gonna happen. Okay, I grabbed the hand truck, got the bale on it and moved it about 20 feet. I still had 300 feet to go. Screw it I said. I turned around and dragged it 30 feet to my compost piles where I cut it apart and made a nice big new pile with fresh mown grass and leaves. It was partially decomposed with a worm or 2 in each slice of hay. My words of wisdom are; make darn sure you put them where you want them to stay, or eat your spinach

[trudy]

Good advice Oh2, I got them moved yesterday out from under the shed awning. DH wanted to put them of course where it would be difficult to water an they would have had very little sun so I had him help me move them near the garden area behind the compost bins. He didn't want them where I first intended to put them cuz it would have killed the grass, I asked him what grass, all we have are weeds. Anyway I gave in on that one an decided to put them in the garden area. I getting ready to treat them in the next day or so. Glad to hear you had good results with the flowers with this method.

[southernspirit]

That is such a neat idea! I would love to try it, myself....

[Christy]

thats a awsome idea,

[peachfly]

Trudy, managed to get 9 bales and hope to start setting out plants in about 2 weeks...3/31 is supposed to be our last possible frost date but last year a late frost in early april made a lot of sad farmers around here so i'm going to wait a little extra...i can't wait to see how they do in the straw...got to figure out what i'm going to feed them...i'm going to try making some compost tea but figure something more will be needed...the bales aren't exactly where i wanted them but DH has been watering for me so i think they are there to stay for this year...

[trudy]

Good deal, I have been treating mine an they are almost ready. I took my plants out of the greenhouse to harden off. It won't be long now b4 time to plant. Thanks for mentioning the last frost date, I hadn't checked on that.

[jack]

Gidday

Yeah I have used this way of growing many times. Especially when we had an extremely hard clay soil. It is just the best way then for carrots and other root crops because they come out so easy and clean.
But of course, you can grow anything this way and don't even need soil to grow your garden.

[peachfly]

I've got maters, peppers, squash, and watermelon in my straw bales. Have been using fish fertilizer, 1T/gal on them about once a week on the straw bales and the plant leaves. They have been growing well, but this week I noticed that 2 of the mater plants were looking a little peaked. I was wondering about uping the fish stuff to twice a week. Is there any reason that wouldn't be good? Anyone think of anything else I should be doing?

I splerged and bought 3 containeres from Wally World that had holding areas in the bottoms for plants to take up water as they needed. The info said I would be able to go up to two weeks without watering...two days is actually more like it. But I have been keeping water with half strength fish fert in the pots all the time and the plants are doing great. Instructions on fish bottle reads every 3 weeks. Is it safe to ignore the instructions or am I liable to wake one morning to dead overfed plants?

[trudy]

Here are my squashs in the bales. Since this pic I have fertilized them an they have green right up.

[Tonnymonk]

Of course, I know NOTHING about straw bale gardening, but those look fantabulous, Trudy!! Good Job!!

[trudy]

Thanks, I don't know much about it either. But I like trying new things an experimenting.

[peachfly]

Trudy, your squash look great. I didn't plant that many but have put in some peppers, beans, maters, and some watermelon at the end of one of my bales. I figured I could wind it around if it took off. I finally broke down and fertilized the bales with some Miracle Grow. The fish fert. just didn't seem to be working; everything except one pepper was beginning to turn yellow. I don't really understand it, because the only thing I've used on my container grown maters is fish fert. and they are HUGH and green. Oh well...

Hope you all didn't get blown away this weekend.

[trudy]

I don't understand why the fish fert didn't work either, I to wound up having to use MG. I waited an waited on the FF to do its job but didn't seem to kick in so I caved in as well, they have now greened up after only one application. Ya gotta do whatcha gotta do. It'll be interesting to see how they will all do for sure. The wind was aweful, been rough now for about 3 days. Hopefully today will be calmer.

[Pharmer Phil]

Whats happening here IMO, is that the straw/hay bales themselves have not sufficiently decomposed.
This will cause a nutrient leech, actually pulling Nitrogen from you plants, and using it to decompose the bales.
Fish fertlizer, I use it in small quantities as an additive to the compost pile to aid in decomposition.
I believe that due to the "lower" earth friendly levels of nutrients in the fish fertilizer, is not enuff to overcome that process of leaching, and still have enough UMPH left to feed your plants.

From what I have read of this strawbale technigue, normally ammonium nitrate is used to first breakdown the bales, so this will not happen.

[Garden Happy]

Trydy,
what a great way to go I'm thinking of putting some fall plant into straw bals in my hoop house,they are suppose to give off heat,so when we forst get cool and want bales on the sides and ends of the hoop houseand thought about trying several things with it,only problem is here in Florida straw is $11.00 a bale so I hope to find some "old" straw,time will tell!! Good luck on this,we are using tires for a trail on potato's here the grubs got our first season crop of them!!!(now i'm told you can't grow potato's in Florida,o,I hope they are wrong that is my favorite crop!!)I worry about the bales inviting mice into the green house or bugs is the only thing.Any one have problems with that,we ahve a lot of snakes here too!!!

[trudy]

May 12, 2008 5:30:09 GMT -6 Pharmer Phil said:

Whats happening here IMO, is that the straw/hay bales themselves have not sufficiently decomposed.
of nutrients in the fish fertilizer, is not enuff to overcome that process of leaching, and still have enough UMPH left to feed your plants.

From what I have read of this strawbale technigue, normally ammonium nitrate is used to first breakdown the bales, so this will not happen.

Thanks Phil, I did treat the bales with the AN like the site said to do. But your explaination explains it good as to why the FE isn't enough.

[peachfly]

And I did not treat my bales except to water them for some time before planting. I read that was an acceptable substitute for the AN. I've since read that people who don't want to use AN sprinkle blood meal on the bales and water it in. If I do this next year, I'll try that. I feel much better after reading Phil's explanation...I'm sure that was my problem.