Bale "cooking" questions

Hello, strawbale gardeners.

I emailed Kent privately some time ago asking some questions. He pointed me to this forum and I have been monitoring it ever since. I've been cooking the bales for some time now and have some additional questions.

1) How critical is it that the bales' internal temperature reaches a certain point and stays at it for a period of time? I have been under the impression that it is very important for the bales to reach ~120 F internally. I have 17 bales on my roof that I have been prepping for about 3 weeks now. The first 2 week rather passively, where I would water once a week and let the rain do the rest of the work. Fortunately, it has been raining about 3 times a week. The last week or so, I have been diligent at adding urea (45% nitrogen) to the bales. For the 17 bales I have spent about 12lb of urea so far, plus 3 lb of blood meal. Point is, the "new" bales have not gotten hot yet. They stay at about 60F.

2) I said new because I have about 8 bales that I bough as "defects" from a Southern Coop store. They are 1 year old bales, that have gotten wet over time. I got them for $1/bale which was a great deal compared to 5.95 for new dry bales. Two of those old bales have gotten to a nice 130F and stay like that for about 2 days. I am assuming they are ready now. Should I continue waiting until the new bales heat up, or should I go ahead and start planting?

My concern is that they will decide to heat up later on and kill the plants that I put in there. This happened to me with my sage planting. I put some sage and thyme in one of the old bales thinking that they are ready and after I did that, the next day I check its temperature and 6 inches from the top, the thermometer is showing 120F. Sure enough, the sage leafs turned brown, I don't think it was too happy with the heat.

My second question or concern is that in the "old" bales, if I spread the straw, which is easy to do, since it is rather loosely packed compared to the new ones, I see some _white_ stuff. Kinda looks like mold or fungus growth. I wonder if this will be bad for the plants once I transplant them. I am less worried about the two "cooked" old bales because I a m hoping that after staying at 120F for 2 days, some bad bacteria was killed, but other old bales that also have some of this white growth, have not gotten hot yet to disinfect. Any ideas or comments?

I am thinking that I am not going to plant tomatoes/peppers/etc in these old funky bales. Instead I will grow something less critical, like herbs, in these old bales and leave the new bales for the vegetables.

Any input is appreciated,

Thanks.
-Sergei

Sergei: the mold/white stuff you see is a good sign that the bales are decomposing nicely. No problem planting anything in them. You'll probably see a lot of mushrooms, too. Good sign.

RE: the "new" bales that haven't started "cooking" yet, it's a function of moisture, nitrogen, and outside temp (which helps keep the inside bale temp up). If the right mix isn't reached I don't think you'll see a spike in temp inside the bales. You said you only watered once/week and let the rain do the rest. That could be one issue right there.

You may not have gotten enough moisture inside the bale to trigger a good cooking. Just guessing.

The "old" bales that cooked up nicely probably had decomposed enough to cause a more insulated and compacted area inside the bale, so they were able to hold more moisture for a longer time, and "cooked" up nicely even with the cool outside temps we've had, at least in NC.

Just continue keeping your bales moist (water more than once/week) and give it to around May 1st before you transplant. You don't want a cold snap come through and bite your plants.

Kent

Kent,

Thanks for you quick reply. I am back on my game now and am watering things daily to keep the bales nice and moist, so they should be getting ready soon.

On the topic of maintaining a proper balance inside the bale for them to start cooking, I came across this useful article:
http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s-5-21-112-1-1-2,00.html

I did a quick calculation, assuming that a bale is 50lb, I estimated that I need .4 pounds of urea per bale, to achieve the right ratio for composting. I wonder if people agree with my estimate of 50lb per bale. Unfortunatelly, when I decided to do the measurements, I did not have any more dry bales around to measure, and the ones I had were close to 100lb with all the water in them, so I just assumed 50lb when relatively dry for the purpose of my calculation.

Speaking of adding stuff to the bales. Urea dissolves in water relatively easily, but bloodmeal does not. Thoose people that start their bales with bloodmeal, how do you get it intot he bale? To do spread the straw and put the powder in between or so you still try to dissolve it in water.

Yes, waiting for a warmer temperature here as well. It is quite difficult. On one hand I am tempted to plant now to get things going, but realized that even if I stick things in the bales, they will just sit there waiting for warmer temps before they start growing. Might as well keep them inside. Although I do have some spear seedlings, and I may just try to put them there a bit earlier. If they take great, if not, they were spares anyway.

Have a good day.

Sergei: from what I've read, those using Blood Meal just sprinkle it over the bales and water it down into the bales.

Don't let the prepping of your bales worry you too much.

It's not an exact science.

Just take good notes and refer back to them each year on what works, when you started, etc.

It was on my 3rd year that I realized that putting the strings ON the ground worked much better for me.

Kent

I used bloodmeal last year but found the ants loved it so am not using it this year.

i'm on my 4th day of watering in the urea. took the temp ,one bale was 118 and the rest were between 80 and 95 . is that normal ,such a difference ,with exact treatment?

digger: 10-4 on the possible wide temp swings among bales. Just go with the flow.

Kent

OK...

I purchased 4 bales from Lowes about a month ago. They have been sitting out in the rain for that period. I have just been so busy I have had no time.

Now what do I need to do? I placed them where I wanted them and soaked them with the hose today. I am going out of town for the weekend but its supposed to rain so I assume they will stay wet enough.

I thought I read somewhere that I didn't need to add anything but water if I weathered them long enough...

Any info?

truckalter: continue to make sure your bales remain moist from here on out. Reach down in the bales and see if they are slimy/decomposing. If so, then you're ready when the weather is ready.

Kent

Hello everyone ~ Total and complete newbie here. I have a cooking question. I got my bales yesterday and watered the snot out of them (yes, I do believe straw bales have snot). At any rate, I mistakenly added a cup of urea (46-0-0) to each bale today, before rechecking the "cooking instructions" I printed off this forum a while back. Will this be a problem? Don't want to ruin them because bales are $7 each here and I just dropped 100 bucks on bales and urea (hard to find AN here).

TIA for your help ~ Sheri

Sheri: no problem with your early addition of the urea.

I still don't know who came up with the "original" recipe for prepping the bales so it's not a hard science.

Next year I'm going to prep some of my bales WITHOUT any additives other than water just to compare.

I don't know enough about bale decomposition chemistry to know just how long it takes after the bales are wet down before the nitrogen helps kick in the "cooking", so it may be that the urea on the 1st day doesn't add any boost, but it may.

So don't sweat it.

Keep your bales moist for the next couple of days and then re-add the urea.

Welcome aboard.

Kent

Kent ~ Thanks for the quick response. No problem keeping them wet for the next few days...I live in western Washington. Wet here is definitely NOT an issue! I'm looking forward to seeing how the 'maters in particular come out. 'Maters don't typically do well here cuz it just doesn't get warm enough long enough. Hopefully this will remedy that sitch and I will have lots and LOTS! ^_^

Sheri

Sheri: keep us posted.

Kent