Having moved to a new house with a huge lawn that seemed impossible to dig,
I decided to try Straw Bale Gardening, Wow, so simple and so effective.
I immediately joined the Straw Bale Gardening facebook group and poked around on the web and Youtube to see what other gardeners were doing, The season came upon me very fast and I just winged it without buying the book or having much of a plan.
The important part of straw bale gardening (SBG) is to "condition" your bales for a couple of weeks prior to planting. Adding nitrogen builds heat and starts the decomposition process to feed the plants as the summer goes along.
The idea is to add fertilizer every other day and water in between.
Here are some resources to help you get your bales in condition to plant.
Conditioning Info:
The Book:
Organic Gardeners Beware, Blood Meal can be expensive and works a bit slower than a granular fertilizer. You can let nature do her thing if you get your bales early.
In the first year, the spring was cold and rainy, and my bales didn't seem to heat up.
A delightful surprise is the mushrooms that sprout. Then they wilted and died a few days later. I panicked, I wondered if my bales contained Round-Up or some other poison. The fine people on the FB group assured me that the dead mushrooms meant my bales were ready to plant. I was cautious so I planted part of my plants to see if they would survive. They seemed slow to grow in the chilly spring, but they did not die, so I planted the rest of my seeds and plants.
PLANT SEEDS IN STRAW BALES
Seeds can easily be planted, just add a few cups of dirt to the top and stick your seeds in.
PLANT SEEDLINGS IN STRAW BALES
I like to start my plants from seed indoors, but whether you buy plants or grow your own, you can transfer them to your bales by simply carving out a hole with your trowel, add a little soil and place the plant in the hole and top fill with a bit more soil. If your bales are still quite tight, you can use a knife to cut some straw out. Or if you set your bales side by side you can use space between the bales to place your plants.
I placed 2 bales next two each and staggered them on one of my rows.
Once the temps warmed up and the humidity hit, my plants went CRAZY!
One month later....
I learned that SBG is not great for indeterminate tomatoes unless you have built a structure to support them. Now, I only plant bush varieties in the bales. I did create a structure for the cucumbers which has worked for 2 years.
Before & After of the cucumbers!!
By the end of the season, my straw bale garden was a jungle.
Even though this mass of intertwined tomatoes was unruly, at least the bales helped to keep the heavy vines off of the ground.
I loved the adventure of trying a new gardening method. I had no idea if it would be successful, but I was very pleased with my harvest. I had 5 times more than I needed and I enjoyed sharing it.
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