anybody else garden on top of straw bales?

[johnson1942]

im new at it but im learning and ive seen it really work good for a fellow 15 miles from me. his peppers and tomatos are eariler and produce more when grown on bales. share info if you garden like this, i want to learn all i can one this type of gardening. its getting that time of year.

[SciFiJim]

If you are talking about using hay as the growing medium, I would think it would get moldy if you kept it watered. Eventually it would break down to mulch, but it might be a few seasons.

I don't have any experience with it, and haven't seen it done. If you try, post your results with pictures here so that we all can learn from your experience.

[JSnover]

Like a raised bed? I'm picturing topsoil on top of hay.

[MT Gianni]

It has been a long time since I have seen small squares around here, all ton round bales.

[dilly]

You mean so the water drains out instead of staying stagnant?

[Freightman]

look here http://modernfarmer.com/2013/07/straw-bale-gardening/

[jmort]

I like it. Going to try it.

[KLR]

I tried it last year for the first time. The green beans did well, but not the tomatoes, peppers, kale, and squash. I much prefer the double bucket self watering containers.

[johnson1942]

freightman, thats what im talking about. this may be a good post for all of us to follow and learn from that love gardening. the fellow that does this localy has the most beautiful productive garden in the entire area. he has a back yard that is as neat as most peoples liveing room. he has old wagons and manure spreaderes and such with bales in them. he waters the bales in the fall and then puts compost in the spring on them and plants in them. his peppers and tomatoes are way above average. he puts drip irrigation on them. this is what i did last fall and i will tell every one how it turns out. i had my neighbor put 4 of his extra straw bales by my barn. the big round ones. flat side up. i then soaked them very very good with water. then i got the septic tank bacteria from the local hard wear store and mixed it with water and poured it over the center of the 4 big bales. i then mixed a complete with trace minerals commercial fertilizer in water and poured it all over the top of the four large round bales on the flat side. then i covered the centers with with a sack of composted dirt in the middle of each. this may im going to plant climbing cucumbers in the center of one then muskmelons in one of the others and watermelons in another and vining zucchinni on the 4/th. im going to put a large clear plastic storage box over the seed site until they are growing real good. i figure the bales to be good for a couple of years and when they are all broken down i will put the compost in old useless cattle watering tanks and plant veg. or berries in that. oh yes the fellow who uses small rectangular balles puts black plastic under them. i hope im on the right track as i cant see where i missed any thing. also im useing a soil surfactant i learned about from another post on this part of cast boolits to pour this spring on the dirt in the center of the bales. this will help hold moisture in that area. i want a good garden this year that is less work than usual. gardens are becomeing cost effective with the price of food now days. probably put in 50 bell pepper plants as we eat them with every thing. epson salts went on the bales also, i forgot that one and maybe a little sulfur and iron form the farm store real soon as it is warming up around here. if this works i will give follow up and if it doesnt i will bite the bullet and report that also. no matter what happens i will end up with some good compost in a couple of years.

[Three44s]

The best I can offer is as I recall my father talked about a water mellon plant that got started accidently on top of a pile of older sawdust.

I don't recall any particulars as to water or plant food ........ but as I recall the plant took over the whole pile .... so it would have done well.

Now, as you read through the comments you see folks question the nutritive value of straw ....... and they are right to do that but the author points out repeatedly that he is adding plant food pretty often. And all of that would be correct. Straw would be pretty devoid of plant nutrition as baled. You would have to add nutrients.

One poster pointed out the status of bales these days ..... and yes, large is in!

If the OP could find a grower with some round bales he might be able to cut them with a chainsaw with a long bar ........ crosswise. In other words, cut the bale in half and have two round wheels of straw.

It would give you the right height or nearly so and make two big flat top planting areas as opposed to a long string of little bales.

Three 44s

[Garyshome]

I should have my garden turned over already but it's too cold for any of that yet.

[SciFiJim]

I did my first step of preparing my garden yesterday. I sprayed the knee high weeds with Round-Up.

[jsizemore]

Works great. Add more bales every couple of years and when each growing season starts set new plants on the soil of the old. I use metal t-posts along the outsides of the bales to keep them in position while they decay/collapse and to hold 2x4 welded wire up to keep the critters out. Great way to tie the plants too. I've had the best luck with Beefmasters and Best Boys. YOU CAN'T WATER TOO MUCH! Maters all the way to Christmas in the piedmont of NC. Bales are arranged 3 end to end north to south and then another row beside those staggered 1/2 bale. I hope that makes sense. 2 plants per bale and with the bale stagger each plant gets great sunlight all day. I plant pole beans around the edges of the fence. Critters get what they can reach and keep them pruned and the ones inside are mine. We've had goats, cattle and horses on the farm so I haven't had to worry about fertilizer.

[johnson1942]

thanks, thats encourageing. my mother who is now 92 years old told me how her father would throw water melon seeds into rotted down staw piles in the old days of threshing machines and straw piles. they never watered or anything and came back in august and collected all the watermelons for harvest festival. basicly the same. thanks again.

[Three44s]

johnson1942,

In a PM I suggested you use a surfactant on both the soil underneath and your raised bed as well as I thought you were mixing straw, manure and your soil.

For a number of days, I have been following this thread and realized that the straw may well be the only raised area you plant on. I think I would for go Wet Sol or other similar products on the straw but would still recommend it on the soil beneath and in your case, adding sulphur there as well to give the surfactant more "kick".

Best regards

Three 44s

[johnson1942]

i have both raised beds and decomposeing straw bales im going to plant on as well as black plastic covered ground. it seems that my tractor tire garden is also getting bigger. im also going to try something really diff. i got last fall 2 pickup loads of grave yard grass clippings to mix with compost to put in the old water tanks. it is in a secluded little spot in the country behind the local grave yard. that is the grass clipping dump. their is both new and old heaps of decomposed grass their. no one really goes to the back piles so next june first or their abouts im going out their with all the extra pumpkin seeds i have and lay several here and their on these old piles and cover each with a spade full of dirt. we will see if rain and composed grass will do the rest. we will come back in the fall and see if we have pumpkins. i may do that on a friends ranch on some rotted round bales that have rotted and fallen together also. never know, may get a bumper crop. got the idea from a man who lived in spokan wash years ago. he would go off in to the blue mountains out their with a sack of pumpkin seeds in early summer and plant in various spots that were out of the way and come back in early fall and come home with loads of pumkins. we have moisture now more than most years so it looks good so far. i think it will be a good year and a interesting year.

[jaysouth]

Let me take the thread a little different way. Several years ago I lived on a large lot with large yard and poor soil.

Following up on a article I read in Organic Gardening 20 some years ago, I had several bales of hay delivered to my house. I bought seed potatos and laid the eyes in a straight line on top of some sod. I then tore apart the bales and covered the row of eyes on top of sod with loose hay about two feet deep.

A month later, weather and rain had reduced the hay to about 10-12 inches deep. In two months, potato leaves began to poke through the straw. In three months, I was lifting up the hay to harvest potatos. I could pick and choose potatos of exactly the same size and leave the rest to grow more. I only watered once and put out lime and fertilizer once early on.

After frost, I harvested half the row and added another foot of straw to the remainder of the row. I was picking potatos up to December, as I needed a mess to cook. The cold weather of Jan and Feb froze the potatos left in the ground and ruined them. After gathering by hand (no fork required) the potatos only required soaking for a minute or two to get them clean. There was no soil or mud clinging to them.

The following spring, I moved the straw aside and examined the row. About half the straw had composted and the sod had composted to a depth of about 9 inches. The soil under the row was ten times more friable than before because potato roots had penetrated the ground almost a foot and had rotted, leaving "cappilaries" in the soil to carry water and nutrients down into the soil.

After the second year, I ran a tiller through the row and found perfectly condition soil over a foot deep that I planted other crops in the third year and started another row of straw on sod for potatos.

This year, I will put out a couple of bales of hay and report my results back to you. Already, I have an idea to cover half of them with black plastic to see if that heats them up for earlier planting/composting. My mother used to say that I had a "feverish" mind.

[Skunk1]

Growing up on a hog farm we used straw for growing potatoes. When sows were giving birth, we would clean out stalls once a week and throw the straw (after birth and all) out the back of barn. When it came time to plant we would put out potatoes in the straw. They came out nice sized and round every year. Miss those days.

[johnson1942]

i enjoyed these two additions of information. when straw starts to break down with the fungus and molds it turns the straw into a nutrient rich substance. a old farmer i took care of at a nursing home years ago in n.dak. told me straw is the best soil conditioner their is. he said one reason is that it is a hollow tube and with a little moisture the inside of this hollow tube fills with mold and fungus and bacteria that breaks the straw down fast and perfectly. straw also hold moisture well and doesnt dry out as dry powdery soil for the plant roots. my neighbor has some old horse manure and this spring im going to mix that with the grass and straw i put in the old water tanks. like i stated before i like to mix the septic tank bacteria with it as it gives the mixture a jump start on breaking down. im going to try the potato thing with straw on soil this spring also. thanks for the tip. also it has been my experience that black plastic over bales of wet straw does help them break down faster. i had a 100 ft. row of the small rectangular bales covered for two years and they broke down to just a slight rise in the ground in two years. i planted 3 tomato plants through holes in that plastic last spring and they went nuts. one was a tomato really too long of a season for up north here and it still produced very very well. it was called morgage lifter. made a very good tomato sauce also. yesterday when hunting rabbits on a rancher friends ranch i ran accross a huge pile of unused broken down 1/2 rotted bales that were never used. this huge pile of large round bales is perfect for the garden. im sure scott will let take as many pickup loads of this old bales as i need. rabbits like to hang around them also and makes for good hunting.

[nagantguy]

I use straw and mulched leaves as deep as I can make it, adding more as the plants grow. Make it like a forest floor, keeps weeds down water in rot and decay is food for living g plants. Also read tomatoes love carrots great book on companion gardening. We use no.chemicals at all, compost and decay feed as well as weed. Two years ago we brought in bees , to my surprise horn/tomatoe worms thinned out, also blue bird houses all.around the hardens. Straw in a barrel is great for potatoes and strawberries.We also use snakes to keep down mice and moles. In the gardens and sheds they have good.cover and good eats. Dog hair around the gardens keeps.out deer and is also good moisture retainer and fertilizer. Red Onions all around the boarder keeps rabbits out of the erb gardens. Lemon grass is good for that to.