Straw Bale Gardens Complete, Updated Edition: Breakthrough Method for Growing Vegetables Anywhere, Earlier and with No Weeding

Community Gardeners Love Straw Bales

The soil which happens to exist on the community garden plot near you is usually what you’re stuck with—unless you bring your own bales to the party. Community gardens have some drawbacks: weeds, diseases, insects, shared water spigots, and lots of pesky rules. Many of these issues can be solved or at least reduced by growing your community garden in bales. Community gardens in many locations around the country have reported great results with bales, some converting entirely to the Straw Bale gardening method.

While community gardening rules vary greatly from one garden to another, some rules are difficult to deviate from. One common rule is that you are not allowed to monopolize the use of the garden hose, so you will need to hand water daily during the heat of summer. This can be difficult for Straw Bale Gardeners, because we need consistency in water application.

Community gardens can bring community insects and diseases, and sometimes the soil can be depleted, overused, or filled with weed seeds. Other roles may prevent you from leaving posts in the ground at the end of the season or may require you to leave nothing behind after the season, which can make Straw Bale Gardening more difficult.

A wonderful new movement that I am a big fan of is being led by ShareDirt.com, a non-profit website seeking to help match landowners with nearby gardeners

The parties agree to share production and costs from their gardening efforts as compensation for the use of the land and water. The website makes it easy to find a local landowner willing to host a garden, so if you are looking for a place to start gardening, you might want to check it out.

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Planting Seeds And Seedlings

Seedlings may be planted directly into a hole in the straw bale. Seeds require a layer of sterile planting mix for germination.

If You Are Planning to use prestarted transplants from the garden center or your own seedlings started earlier under indoor grow lights, it is time to begin transplanting them into the bales. Vegetables that are considered warm-season crops, such as tomatoes, peppers, melons, eggplant, cucumber, or squash, are all examples of plants with a good track record as transplants.

The climate where you live (and thus the length of the growing season) will determine whether you must start with transplants or if you can start with seeds. If you would normally use transplants, then purchase the smaller-sized transplants; they are less costly and the extra warmth generated in the root zone by the 'cooking' straw bale will encourage very rapid early season growth. Your tiny transplants will quickly surpass the much bigger transplants that your neighbor uses in the traditional soil garden on the other side of your fence.

Keep in mind that your transplants are going into a root zone that will be approximately 85 degrees on average, whereas the soil may be only 50 degrees or 55 degrees on the same date.

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