Anyone with experience in Straw Bale gardening?

[eco4560]

Put us all in your diary for an update in about 6 weeks! This could be a great system to start a garden for a challenged suburban backyard grower.

[gardenlen]

had no issues with water loss, or wind or rain they work like any other garden, bales need no special watering:

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/straw_bale_garden.htm

mulch the garden well and the bales will help insulate.

len

[NJNative]

I'm in cool-warm temperate, zone 7. The soil is 99% sand, thus why we're giving this method a shot. Double digging produced alright results, but nothing to write home about. We also have several hugelkultur beds that we're experimenting with, hoping to store water in a new soil above the old sandy one. Hopefully the humates will leach into it, and start to help build up a decent soil profile.

For the most part, the beds have been consistently moist. We've been pretty fortunate for the past month in terms of rain, and so have yet to need to water any of the beds, except when planting to reduce shock and help expand seeds. Also, we've had several heavy rains, and it seems to be holding up just fine. Like I said, I will be mulching with leaves, so we'll see how things are once that's on, but I'm expecting the roots of the plants to hold things together pretty tightly. These things are planted pretty densely.

[NJNative]

Great idea len, I will most certainly be trying that way out as well in the future!!

[wmthake]

NJNative,
Nice.
Those bales look new. How is the rain situation? You might need to water them more than usual and/or add more soil on top if the soil you have washes down into the bales. I'd check the humidity of the bales every couple days or put some sort of in drip irrigation (even better if covered with the leaves).

Irrigation=Tubing+Raised bucket with spout. An afternoon project.

Old bales conserve water better (more fungi), but new bales retain their shape better.

Also, you might want to make sure those stakes go down into the ground. If they are just in the straw they will bend over as the holes get bigger and the beans start climbing.

best of luck,
William

[NJNative]

Those bales are about a month old. Some of them were still slightly green when we got 'em though. They seem to be holding water fairly well in the top few inches. There's definitely fungus popping up as well, so I think their decomposition process is well under way.

Just in case though, we do have a 330 gallon rain barrel system, ready and waiting to be put to use. It was about 3/4 of the way full when I was there on sunday, and it's rained more since then. We'll see how it goes. I need to figure out a way to increase the pressure though, they're only about 1/2 foot higher than the bales, so they barely trickle onto them. I'm wondering if a rain barrel soaker hose would work. Something like this:

http://store.rainbrothers.com/produc...d-Systems.html

The other option is a solar pump, but that's an expensive solution I've been trying to avoid:

http://store.rainbrothers.com/produc...rrel-Pump.html

It has gone down $6 though, so that's a plus I guess.

In any case, when the season ends, I'm building a platform for them 3-4' off the ground.

[Raymondo]

Did it once just to see how it would go. I had two bales which I stood so that the straw ends faced up. I watered them well with some fish emulsion then parted the straw (a bit of effort there) and planted lettuce and chilli seedlings. Worked just fine but they needed a bit of extra water till they got establshed. We had a warm (for here) wet summer so the bales broke down quite quickly. By autumn they were beginning to collapse and were full of worms. It's probably a great way to start a garden. I wouldn't put them directly on bermuda grass (aka couch) though. It will just just grow up through them.
Would I do it again? No. My income is very limited and straw bales are too expensive compared to the local council crushed wood mulch.

[Pakanohida]

I'll take photos tomorrow of how it looks, the sun is setting at the moment and there isn't enough sunlight for good photos. I broadcasted seeds via Emelia Hazelip's synergistic system in order to grow soil.

[NJNative]

Just an update. Looks like they're working pretty well. Check it out:


Definitely some initial leaf-burn from transplanting, but they're looking healthy now, and even fruiting:




Rosa Bianca's taking her time, but looking pretty good:


Just thinned out the lettuce:

And potatoes are coming up very densely, didn't know you were supposed to cut them up into pieces before planting, hah:


Finally, there's been TONS of mushrooms popping up, mostly inky caps. Good sign for the decomposition process:

[S.O.P]

Are you going to mulch the tops, or is that it?