This idea has become a bit expensive out here in recent years, but I have built several straw bale gardens over the years. They are a great way to grow greens and herbs and once they compost they make a great start on a regular garden area.
Straw bale gardens can be a single bale or more elaborate configurations. I chose a maze like configuration so I could lay a soaker hose all along the tops of the bales for easy irrigation.
First I put down a layer of newspapers, feedbags and cardboard – whatever is available right on top of any mowed area. Next I lined up the bales the way I wanted them.
I put a 3 inch layer of mushroom compost and topsoil mixed on top of the bales. ALso put in a good fertilizer like blood meal or fish emulsion.
The poles are for a net fence to keep the peacocks, chickens and deer out of the garden. Those poles are slipped over t posts. I got a truckload of them in one of my treasure hunts! They are the core of rolls of material used to cover pallets of paper or plywood at the mills. An easy 8 ft fence.
I put this garden in in February and let it soak! It will heat up substantially. If you don’t get several feet of rain like we do here you need to soak the bales with a hose and it would probably be best to build the garden in the fall. By the end of March the garden was starting to grow:
In a few more weeks I had a beautiful garden. THe following year I left the herbs grow in this area and planted a new strawbale garden in a different spot. Next spring I hope to do another garden in my back yard.
I was just wondering why you put down the cardboard/paper under the strawbales and in the middle of the maze?
Thanks!
Julie
Hi Julie,
I did that because I was building the garden directly on lawn. The cardboard killed the lawn underneat without tilling or weeding. Plus I had tons of boxes from moving and feed bags from the chickens to do something with. 😉
Hope that helps,
Debbie
PS, I see you are from Humbolt – do you know Anna Kircher? She used to be my boss at Evergreen.
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We live in southeastern AZ and we have clay for soil. I’ve been wanting to find information on straw bale gardens and this is the best I’ve found. It’s my new favorite site. Thank you! Becky Reyes
Hey again!
Just wanted you to know what an inspiration you are! I’m slowly working my way to that straw bale garden. We’ll be ready by spring. We kept a bunch of bales out during the monsoons this year and they look really good.
We are also going to have to build a wall around the garden as spring winds are devastating out here. We’ve got a lot of work to prepare for spring, but not so much that we can’t take our time.
Thanks again for the inspiration. When planning, your blog is always up on my screen. It’s as important to me as the scads of books I have on sustainable living and straw bale. -Becky
Thank you Becky for the compliment! It’s been too busy around here this fall to post much but I’ll catch up this winter!
Debbie
[…] We like to do raised beds because we find it’s easier to simply start with good soil/compost – and continue to amend to keep it that way. We might try some different things this year – stay tuned to see what we decide…maybe this?) […]
Nice blog! Thanks for sharing. Debbie
Great article – love your website as well!
Doug
Thank you Doug – I am quite impressed with your web site also!
Debbie
hi,
i live in nashville,tn. we have pine straw bales and haystraw bales available. i heard that haystraw will sprout but pine straw wont. would you reccommend one over the other? also, do you think i could plant squash and okra , even tomatos on stakes on top of these bales? do you dig a hole in the bales , working it in,or just put dirt right on top?
thank you so much for your help.
wendy
Hi Wendy,
I have not used Pine Straw but I don’t think it will work because the pine needles are highly acidic. I sometimes left the wheat grow out the sides of regular straw bales for yet another crop from the garden!
I planted tomatoes in straw bales just fine. I carved out a hole down into the straw – planting the tomato as deeply as possible just like in the garden. I used tomato cages right in the bales to hold them up. I’ve also grown pumpkins in strawbales and that works fine too.
Hope that helps! Good luck with your straw bale garden.
I just found your straw bale garden blog. I get irrigation water every 12 days. Would the bales “soak up” the irrigation water or is this type of garden only useful to water from above?
Thanks,
Sherrie
I would think it would work – does it get flooded by a few inches of water? One thing about the roots in a straw bale is that they sink right through the bale. It’s a wonderful place to grow carrots because they turned out very long and straight. The radishes had a root that when the whole depth of the bale. You will likely need to water from the top to initially wet the soil and bales and get it composting but after that I would think watering from the bottom would work fine.
deberosa
thanks for a great site! have you ever tried onions? can’t hardly wait to get started. thanks again
marty
Hi Marty – I got great onion plants in straw bale gardens but not many onions. But I had a hard time growing onions even in the regular garden so I am not sure it was the straw bales that were the issue!
Debbie
I am so happy to have found this information, I am excited to get started and have the perfect spot to try this. Yeah!
Thanks for answering all of my Strawbale gardening questions. I am starting mine a bit late this spring. I was so happy to find this site.
Happy Gardening!
Hello,
I have been gardening in bales about 3 years. The first 2 years were great. I followed directions from Carolina Country Gardens. They recommend using ammonium nitrate (32-0-0) to fertilize the bales before planting. I can’t seem to find it anymore since the gov’t is restricting sales of this. Last year, I used a different fertilizer that was high in nitrates but my crops did poorly. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Fran
Hi, I had good luck with blood meal. It’s high in nitrogen.
Oh, forgot to mention, throw some soil over the tops of the bales first so the microbes can soak down into the bale and compost it well. Then after the bale has rotted down, you can use it for mulch or in your compost heap.
I know this is way late in answering your question, but I just now saw it. I water my bales with my own urine watered down with dirty kitchen water. I found it on the internet. It’s amazingly useful (just don’t tell your dinner guests).
Amazing. The more of these I see, the better I like the idea. It looks like you have had good luck with this way of gardening. I’m glad I found you through another blog.
BlessYourHeart
Thank you!
this looks really interesting! what do you do with the straw bales when your garden is done? do you till it in? are you able to use the bales for more than one season? do you have problems with mold? thanks for sharing these ideas. i especially like the idea of the tubes over the t-posts!
Hi, I let the straw bales rot and it turns the area into a very rich regular garden once the bales are gone. They can last two seasons with care. Didn’t have any problem with mold.
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Hi There – visited your blog. It may be the bone meal that is the issue – I used blood meal – much higher in Nitrogen. At any rate works great for me!
What about mice? Do you have a problem with mice in the winter? I live in Minnesota.
Haven’t had a problem with that.
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reposted @ http://veganslivingofftheland.blogspot.com/2015/02/straw-bale-layering-lasagna-gardening.html