Does anyone do straw bale gardening?

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eggcited2

eggcited2

Crowing
13 Years
Jul 8, 2010
493
40
266
Illinois
Does anyone on here do straw bale gardening? I would like to ask if it would be good to put some of the bales out with the turkeys and chickens for them to set on and poop on the bales. Then let the bales set over the winter (to age the poop) and next spring use them for my gardening?

Straw bale gardening is using bales of straw to plant your garden plants in, instead of using soil. You actually plant directly into the bale of straw.

I haven't tried it before, but have been reading about it on the forum in dave's garden and it sounds easy and good. I did ask the poop question on there, but no has answered it. Thought I'd try asking on here.
 
I have did it on my potatoes. WORST decision I ever made. Nothing but weed heaven. It basically saved the weds and it just protected them from the tiller and all that stuff. i would suggest not to do it. If you are wanting to use your poultry manure for something, get some regular pine shavings. Let them set and you will have some nice rich dirt for the spring
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My sister did it this summer with tomatoes and had great success. They were slow starting out, but she ended up with a lot more tomatoes than I did. I used potting soil.
 
I just took a class last night on SBG...(straw bale gardening) I am so psyched and excited to start. It sounds like the best thing ever, and I have 1/3 of a hayloft full of old moldy straw bales. I will try to document everything and keep it posted here......

Maybe for once I will have a productive garden, instead of a nice fertilized and rototilled weedbed in June.

First step is laying out and "conditioning" the bales. That involves soaking the bales with water every day and every other day adding a 1/4 cup of ammonium sulfate per bale. This starts the decomp and in 10- 12 days, your bales are ready to plant.
 
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I can't wait to do this. I have an ad on Craig's List looking for square bales; we use the huge round ones in this area. I planted my herbs in a 'lasagna garden' and I really want to try the bales. My plan is to condition them and then do sort of a mini lasagna style layering on top of them. I'll take pictures for y'all and we'll see how it all works. I'm really looking forward to not bending all the way over...
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I'm very interested to hear your results. I saw a video on YouTube awhile back where the guy collected his, um, urine, in a milk container, then took a straw bale, put a little dirt on top to inoculate it, then poured the entire gallon into the bale. Supposedly that works better than anything to get it started on composting. I wish he'd done a follow up to say what he grew in it afterward but as far as I know he never did.

I recently built a straw bale coop and have a few bales left over. I was considering seeing if I could get them ready to use as raised beds so I will really be interested in your experiment.
 
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I thought about that, too. When I get them in my 'lasagna' (layered) garden, I sprinkle corn meal (grits and rice baby cereal work, too) on the area and they die out in a few days. It's a cheap and safe way to get rid of fire ants in the garden...
 

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