Straw Bale Gardening

I love raised beds for gardening/outdoor grows, and found straw bales as the perfect way to set one up quickly. The straw retains moisture while allowing excess water to drain. The roots of the plants will also reach out into the bale so it adds space and air prunes them (unlike wood/plastic which doesn't). And best part is being all natural it breaks down into mulch and can be continually reused as you grow your soil.

To make one, I just lay out the bales right on the land, if you have a hilly area, I would suggest laying them out 'on contour' to make watering more uniform.



I grabbed some Pro-Mix at the local shop and scooched the bales in tight to the bags.



I originally had laid them flat (the strings on top and bottom) but decided I wanted the extra height and moved them so that the strings were on the sides. I am not sure it really matters. And opened up the bags in the middle. It really doesn't matter if you drop soil on the top of the bales because it all basically becomes growing space for the plants. I do this part in the winter so that the weather (rain/snow) does all the heavy lifting wetting the soil. Also the bales have time to 'cook' a bit.



Once everything starts to thaw a bit in the spring I went and bought some nutrients and worm castings to amend into the soil.



I used the green fencing over the top because my dogs love the smell of the blood meal and this helps keep them out of trying to dig it up to find out where the body is.



I left some room to drop a couple more bags of Pro Mix to use as a topper because it is a lot easier to mix everything up when it is dry.



I decided I wanted to be cheap and bought the big roll of plastic tubing instead of the nice strait long pieces from Home Depot to make a hoop house. It kind of sucked because it never lost its bend.

To make it I just pounded in 2-3' rebar and slid the plastic tubing right over it.



In the middle I was going to have some heavier tomato plants to tie up, so I pounded in 4 gate posts. With a 2x4 in the middle to create a strong middle area for the tomato plants. You can really see how flimsy the plastic tubing was.



To secure the 2x4 to the middle posts I notched the ends of the board and poked a hole about a inch or so to use to tie the boards to the posts. I wanted to make it so that I could easily remove the board for the winter. I was pretty surprised how well it held up, I half expected it to fall into my plants half way through the season and it never did.



I then looped it around all the tops of the flimsy tubing and secured it to the end posts. At this point if I needed it would have been very easy to just cover this all with a plastic covering to create a greenhouse for the plants.



I would note at this point you can see grass sprouting form the bales. I think this is actually beneficial as those roots will start to create a nice environment for the plants that go into them. I do not suggest trying to rip them out disturbing all that growth, because it is easy to just give it a haircut if needed at any time.

Then it was planting time. My wife went to a local farmer for the starter plants (this was my first time growing any plant other than marijuana). Planting was a breeze, just pop the plant out of the plastic pot, use your fist to push a hole in the nice soft soil and plant the plant, I am not a fan of 'pushing' down the soil around the plants and just gently push soil back around the plant and let nature take over.



The results were pretty good for a first time gardener I think. I like lots of plants (square foot gardening) so that all the roots interact. I did learn a lot about the water needs and would have planned the spaces a bit better once I understood which plants like watering daily and which like a dryer environment however. Also I learned a lot about netting different plants not being the best idea.



Also some plants I found were a little more susceptible to powdery mildew being closer together (squash plants mostly) so learning spacing is important, but it didn't affect the actual produce and I was pretty happy with the end results.

I have a hunch someone has a deer blind near that garden LOL

Nice

Ive used the bales themselves as planters. Simply cut a hole and drop some soil. Works great as described above

Herb & Suds said:

I have a hunch someone has a deer blind near that garden LOL

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My dogs did a nice job keeping it safe once we put up fencing so they had 24 hour access to the back yard.

This picture you can just make out the end of the lead, it was so funny (after it was really scary) when my dog took off after the deer and hit the end of the line. She ripped the bolt right out of the house when her neck held her back and her body went flying.

The deer have been a lot more cautious since they got one a couple years ago to get to the apple trees. It is so weird seeing this picture now when the grass was kept tight.

This is the same spot.

Just wanted to add in too, making a single planter using 4 bales I find is pretty much perfect for Outdoor grows.


I eventually want to try maybe a hexagonal one to see if the extra space will increase yields, but the 4 bales square works well enough for me with one bag of Pro-mix.



If the roots need space they can just grow into the ground.

hanimmal said:

View attachment 4444074

My dogs did a nice job keeping it safe once we put up fencing so they had 24 hour access to the back yard.

This picture you can just make out the end of the lead, it was so funny (after it was really scary) when my dog took off after the deer and hit the end of the line. She ripped the bolt right out of the house when her neck held her back and her body went flying.

The deer have been a lot more cautious since they got one a couple years ago to get to the apple trees. It is so weird seeing this picture now when the grass was kept tight.
View attachment 4444075
This is the same spot.

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My dogs are big helpers just like yours

Nice garden. I may do some straw bale gardening down at the river house. Most of the land is prone to flooding. That extra foot or two just might save me.

Excellent garden. My neighbor grows veggies directly in the bales, has them set up in a big W pattern with drip irrigation. Top dresses castings and waters in ACT's...works very well with tomatoes, melons, peppers and such. I love the 4 bale/promix 'beds' you've got with your pot plants-they look super happy and healthy, might have to scatter a few of those in the woods here and get out of growing in pots.

I too have a Dane to help with deer control her name is Ivy and has made a huge difference in fruit tree harvest. However she is a little to curious to a lot of help in the veggie garden.

Nice garden btw , I would recommend a couple of things.
1. the use of pvc for the hoops as they can be fitted with sprayers or misters or drip irrigation. And as you noticed are stiffer than the per.
2. light weight netting ( if you have problems with birds or cabbage flies )

I think you had great results and will do well in the future as you work out the details. I struggled with squash worms after the first couple of years and now only try about every third year.

Tell us more about the zone your in and area ( if you’re comfortable sharing that) and what plants you had good and bad results from.

Bareback said:

I too have a Dane to help with deer control her name is Ivy and has made a huge difference in fruit tree harvest. However she is a little to curious to a lot of help in the veggie garden.

Nice garden btw , I would recommend a couple of things.
1. the use of pvc for the hoops as they can be fitted with sprayers or misters or drip irrigation. And as you noticed are stiffer than the per.
2. light weight netting ( if you have problems with birds or cabbage flies )

I think you had great results and will do well in the future as you work out the details. I struggled with squash worms after the first couple of years and now only try about every third year.

Tell us more about the zone your in and area ( if you’re comfortable sharing that) and what plants you had good and bad results from.

Click to expand...

Im in lower Michigan, 6a. It is pretty swampy where I am at, so mostly had some slugs nibbling here and there as they walked across my tomatoes making seams, took me a while to figure out what was happening with that, they mainly stuck to the kale and lettuces though.

And I let one cool looking caterpillar enjoy my tomatoes.

The most persistent problem I had though was these little babies from some orange bugs on my tomatillo plant that was not that hard to find once I knew to look under the leafs for them when they were small.

The Birds mostly stayed away, I have 4 large blueberry trees, several apple trees, pear trees, wild rasberries and blackberries, I even found a wild gooseberry (but never a ripe one to try), all kinds of stuff around the outer rim of our property. I would like to actually try a ripe blueberry at one point, but the birds I swear wait for them to hit that perfect shade of blue and then they eat them. I barely ever see them more ripe than this one here.


I think this is why I am pretty safe from most of the animals that would eat my garden, between my dogs as deterrence and the plenty of food around it that is safe for them to get to there is not a ton of reason for them to jump the inner fence.

The best things were the small yellow tomatoes there was always a handful of them ripe to eat as I worked, and my dog absolutely loved them too.


I think mostly things worked well except my screwing up and netting the squash plants, and the tomato plant (purple) that I planted in a bed of clover (you can see the 4 bale square bed has the young clover when I planted) was just heaven for the slugs who would destroy the tomatoes as they ripened.


My biggest mistake I think besides the clover with tomatoes, was netting my squash plants, I still got a lot, but it strangled a lot of growth and got some serious powdery mildew.


I really liked the way it came together though, even if it was a bit of a mess.