Straw Bale Gardeners - put yourself on the map

Click on this link to put your bale garden on the map: www.frappr.com/strawbalegardeners

We now have bale gardeners in the US, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia!

Kent

I haven't had a garden in 8 years and read about the straw bales. Since this type of raised garden is so much cheaper than what I have done in the past, it has intrigued me. Being in the Northwest we can get about any type of hay bale that is desired. I have heard that straw is the best for lack of weeds. Is this true?

flylady1: you're not going to have to worry about weeds no matter what type of bale you use unless the field that the bales came from was full of weeds when the baling was done.

Commit our motto to memory: NO WEEDING, NO HOEING, NO TILLING! :-)

The only thing you'll probably see sprouting from your bales will be wheat or oat straw, etc, and some mushrooms.

Jeanette, one of our bale gardeners since the beginning of the first thread is from Washington state, too.

Kent

I'm not sweating seds sprouting from the bales, even though my first venture into this is with moldy Timothy hay bales, which contain many Timothy seed heads. The bales heated internally to 150 degrees for three days during the intial decomposition, so only seeds near the surface could have survived. I'll just pull any that germinate and a few weedings will eliminate them. Prob'ly will spend more time pulling sprouts of the quadzillion seeds the desert wind will blow in.

Hey, maybe I could be lazy and just let them grow then write a book about weeds as mulch (LOL)!!

Frank

Frank: take some pics for us.

One of these days, I hope to get out west and see some of this big country of ours.

Kent

Kent, I made a post with a picture this morning. More to follow.

BTW, we lived in your neck of the woods (Cary, NC) for 15 years. A great place to live. AZ climate is quite different, of course. I have to say that despite the extra effort the heat and dry add to gardening, I really don't miss all the rain and humidity one experiences in NC.

Frank

Frank: I've heard many good things about AZ. As for the rain here, we're in a drought, but just got some good rain recently. Falls Lake was down to historical lows; lots of water restrictions for the city folks.

Kent

Hi there...I just joined DG today, and mostly because I wanted to see more up close pics of straw bale gardening. I live MO, and have a greenhouse and a few raised garden beds on a place that the previous owner scraped flat of all topsoil down to mostly rock. We have only owned this little 5 acre place for two years now. I will be trying this method this year along with my raised beds.. Can't wait to see how it works. I have lots of back stuff to read. Hope you are well and will be able to give me pointers as needed. TYIA. Tracy.

Tracy: welcome aboard!

Kent