Strawbales Make the N.Y. Times
Well he obviously never heard of Kent and Dave's Garden!! You would think he is the only one to come up with the system, the way it's written! But it's good to see the idea is spreading. It is still the most practical system for me alongside Earthbox growing!
I debated writing and selling a book years ago, but decided against it.
I just didn't have a desire to commercialize what I had learned and loved doing, so I promoted it FREE OF CHARGE everywhere I could including here at DG, which had to start a Straw Bale Garden forum due to the popularity of my original thread back in March, 2006, in the Vegetable Garden forum!
This message was edited Apr 2, 2013 12:47 PM
Some do good things for pride and some do them for love of their fellow man/woman. Thank you, Kent, for helping us all learn strawbale gardening, and for your kindness of sharing your knowledge for free. You will be rewarded, and probably already are seeing some of those rewards, already.
I know this is an old thread but...it was not anything or anyone that got me to try SB gardening this year, it was my fellow N. Carolinian Kent in Wake Forest who I found from surfing where I found a link to somewhere (?) he was being generous enough to share his experiences.
I'm working with 40 bales, string side down (which on some bales is the cut end, and some not...they came from Lowe's @$5.95 each) and using 46-0-0 pelleted Urea (found on ebay) to prepare them. They are not heating much but are sprouting grass.
Today I became enlightened when someone mentioned that if the tiny green grass shoots are growing, the bales are probably not too hot to plant. All the bales are on shade cloth and surrounded by two layers of cement blocks..holes up. Took forever to fill them with dirt.
I've built an elaborate system for vertical gardening, and planted a couple hundred snow peas and they are doing great. Cold insensitive plants were planted before the surprise two day freeze late in this season and all are not that happy, but did not die. I lost the marigolds though.
Today I'll move the peppers, squash, cukes, eggplants, and tomatoes to outside under clear plastic between the bale rows and plant in the bales in about a week. The garden is in an area that gets sun at least 12 hours a day.
So thank you Kent...you inspired this old woman to try something new, and at my age if I can do it, so can anyone else. It is sure a pretty garden, it remains to be seen what will grow.
MiniBeesKnees .... welcome, my Forsyth Co friend, aboard the straw bale garden express!! :-) .... always good to have some new folks in the mix!! I don't get on here as much as I used to. Feel free to post some of your pics in the general thread.
Kent