Straw Bale gardening

[bacpacker]

Here are a couple of short article that give some detail on getting the straw bales prepped for planting. It takes a little work up front and regular feeding thru the growing season, but with plenty of access to chicken crap, that should be no problem. Here are the links.

http://www.rootsimple.com/2013/04/st...ng-fertilizer/

http://www.rootsimple.com/2013/05/st...eady-to-plant/

[ladyhk13]

That is strange. Maybe the rain did rot the plant. The only other thing that comes to mind, which I have no idea if it would be right or not, is that by piling it up over and over kept the plant putting out green on the vine, it may never have spurred on tater growth. I really don't know.

So when ya grow taters you aren't supposed to mound the new growth so that as new taters grow along the stem they stay out of the sun? Maybe I just did it wrong with the straw it seemed like a good idea at the time instead of putting them in the ground.

I am still thinking that growing in straw is cool and would like to try it again, maybe just not taters

[bacpacker]

I've never done the straw thing, just watched my grandpa do it after he got older. I have always dug a trench, planted the taters, covered them and would hill the dirt up 2-3 times until the vines started running. After that I stayed out of them to keep from trampling the vines.

I don't really have a good idea with what happened to yours other than rot from the rain.