straw bale garden

[regal]

Anyone tried it?

I wanted to make planter boxes but I think this will be better.  The kids can play amongst them and we can reconfigure them yearly as needed.  Plus, way cheaper.


www.strawbalegardeningbook.com/inspiration/7-smart-reasons/

[yoginikiki]

Well this is totally awesome. I will spiral on this all day and get back to you!

[Pistol]

I feel like you will end up needing to water a lot more than with dirt. I don’t see how growing in straw is any healthier than dirt. And some things like tomatoes that do best with cages may be harder to do.

[AmyG]

Straw doesn't weigh much so you drag them around by the strings where you want them. Once you pull out some straw, add some dirt and water they soak up water and get heavy. Then you don't really move them again easily as the strings that hold it together will break or can pull off esp as the straw breaks down and then you just have a pile of straw. That might be soon or might be a year or more from now.

Some people have good luck with building a raised bed and putting the straw bales in to fill them as the initial dirt, planting in dirt filled holes in the straw and just letting the straw start to break down to compost in the bed.

My experiende with straw for horse and chicken bedding is A wet bale of straw will start to turn black and look like moldy places. then it breaks down further in the compost bin. But the moldy stuff may initially bother your allergies etc

[yoginikiki]

I think this may work well for me in some ways as I am looking to build more permanent beds via no dig. I do not currently have dirt plots. I could use the straw bales in the areas I want to have a permanent garden plot, plant in them for this season, and then use the decomposing bales as part of the no dig bed to overwinter and hopefully have a nice growing medium for next spring's direct plantings. I also live in a pretty wet area so that helps re: watering bales vs. dirt.

I obviously have more research to do but it might make more sense long term for me to do this vs. raised beds. Also it will make my bean fort look seriously cool.

[regal]

I was planning on building raised beds, but don't want to commit to an exact location yet since we will be building a garage in the next few years. I think these might a good option in the interim.