Straw Bale gardening

[bacpacker]

I work with some folks who have tried this technique and have had decent results with it. The wife and I were talking last night about planning next springs garden and we have started kicking around the idea of growing some of our herbs and greens (lettuce, spinach, arugula, cabbage) in bales. If nothing else just as a test to see how it goes.

Does anyone on here use this growth medium in their gardening? What do you grow in it? What kind of results have you had? What special treatments do they need?

Here is a link I have been reading from to try and educate myself, well to the extent possible at least. I am still in research mode and will add links as I find them.

http://strawbalegardens.com/

[Sniper-T]

I have a friend that grows his potatoes in bales, has always had good results. I've got some to try for next year too!

[bacpacker]

Here is another link I found on Straw bale gardening. It has a few plants listed with number of plants per bale and a little more detail on how to work the bales before planting.

http://www.resilientcommunities.com/...-bale-gardens/

[bacpacker]

Here is a couple other sites with some different information on Straw Bale gardening.

htthttp://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublica...FS109E.pdfp://

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

[helomech]

Never heard of it, but the wife said she has. Sounds like a neat idea.

[2die4]

I read about this method and it looks easy even for a beginner. Hopefully this spring I'll be able to give this a try.

[ladyhk13]

I haven't tried it this way but it looks great! I tried potatoes this year using straw and I think we had way too much rain and everything just rotted. It was weird, the tops were beautiful all season so I kept stacking the straw higher and higher almost as tall as me. When the leaves finally started to die back I pulled the straw away and there wasn't a single potato...the whole stem was rotten and there were huge snails attached to it. I've never seen such a thing before.

[bacpacker]

Im not sure I understand how you did your straw on the potatos.
My grandpa was the only one I knew that grew taters in straw. He would just scatter out his cut peices and then put a layer of straw over them. It was no more than 3-4" deep. We did have a crap load of rain this year.

[ladyhk13]

I put a pallet down, scattered some straw, then scattered some soil. Then I put out some ears that had started to grow so they were good and strong already. Then I covered with some more straw. As the plant grew I would cover with more straw just to the bottom of the top leaves, kind of mound it like you would do with dirt. Kept doing that all season as the plant grew tall. Then at the end of the season the plant died back so it would have been time to harvest, so I did but the vine was rotten.

[bacpacker]

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.