My Straw bale garden
An imaginative way to upcycle straw bales and grow all the vegetables you need,…easily… Learn how straw bale gardens were invented and scroll down for YOUR experiences
Flea Market gardeners love to repurpose things and use ordinary items for creative projects. This type of creative inspiration struck Joel Karsten after seeing hay and straw bales grow sprouts as they decomposed on the farm. He also found himself with a yard full of heavy clay and was disappointed that he’d have to replace all his soil to grow a vegetable garden. That’s when he remembered the straw bales of his youth, growing healthy thistle weeds!
Joel then tried growing vegetable plants in the straw bales purposely and it worked! After some experimentation, he found easy techniques for using straw bales as a growing medium for tomatoes, squash, beans and lettuce to name a few of the veggies that can be grown successfully this way. What I like best is the way bales can be laid out in a neat formations, use less soil,…way less… and best of all, are raised beds,..up off the ground.
Joel’s experiment led to a book and a website , Straw Bale Gardens and he has an impressive speaking schedule explaining his easy, fun and productive gardening method. Would you like to try this method of vegetable gardening? I would!
Becky Carson, a Flea Market Gardener, has been doing this for 2 years now, she says. She tells us, “I found a website where they suggested sprinkling soil on top of the bales. I have been leaving mine outside for 6 weeks to condition them. DON”T cut the baling twine. I prop them beside the timbers of my raised beds. When I’m ready to plant I scoop out 3 or 4 handfuls of straw and replace it with compost and Miracle Gro potting soil. Also add a Tablespoon of Epson salts. Stakes are place every other bale and I run twine to hold the plants up.”
Sarah Lynch-Gregg says “I lived in an apartment and had three straw bales on my terrace. I grew tomatoes, cukes, peppers, squash and zucchini! The plants grew GREAT! It was so easy, you just have to make sure you water well when you do water because the straw doesn’t hold the water a lot, just do it like every other day if you live in a really hot climate like we do in the south.”
The two winners, picked with an online random umber generator, were Patti Kafton and Angela Carrera,…here are their reviews after they received their books…
Patti Kafton
IT’S HERE! The “Straw Bale Gardens” book by Joel Karsten arrived in my mailbox on Friday. It is WONDERFUL-ly informative. I first opened it to the dedication page and nearly cried. I have so many vivid memories of my OWN Grandma Josephine working her garden way into her 90’s. We were NOT ALLOWED in her garden as children. She tended it herself, even when she was so frail she literally crawled down the alleys to rid her treasured space of any weed that dared to pop up! THANKS, Sue, and Flea Market Gardening, and JOEL, for my new treasure!
Angela Carrera
Just received my Straw Bale Gardens book, thank you so much. as soon as I opened it, I started reading it!! I have got to do this this year!! I’ll take photos as soon as I can locate some Straw bales!!! after all, this IS the Garden State!!! Thank you again for this giveaway!!! And I’m using your note as a book mark!!!
Part 1: Apr-May Creating a straw bale garden
Part 2: Jun-Jul Growing a straw bale garden
Part 3: Aug-Sept Harvesting the straw bale garden
Grow, Grow, Grow, Your Boat... These boat gardens are beautiful, colorful, and well grown. It looks like a lot of… Read More
'Paint' Your Garden with Blue... Is your garden is singing the blues? Mix recycled containers and crafts with blue flowers… Read More
See this hilarious and sometimes poignant list of lost items in the garden Question.......what was the last thing you lost… Read More
Designing a charming garden baker's rack When I first saw Jeanne’s well-arranged and simply delightful Baker’s rack, I thought, ‘Somebody… Read More
Choosing a color from 'Over the Rainbow Garden' Billie Hayman's garden is full of color and she shows how one… Read More
Alliums are drama queens in the garden! Whether real flowers, grown from bulbs or the crafted faux flowers modeled after… Read More
View Comments
I grow vegetables in raised bed and have used straw as a mulch in them to hold down weeds and to keep moisture in. I've never tried straw bale gardening but plan to try it this year.
I started a vegetable garden for the first time last year. I will definitely do it again this year. My favorite veggies are tomatoes, green onions, jalepenos, green peppers, beets and carrots. I want to do sweet peas this year, too.
I have been using raised beds for gardening the last couple of years and I normally raise tomatoes, potatos, squash, peppers and onions. I always use straw mulch around my potatoes but never thought about growing plants in the hay bale. I will research and get more information but would love to have a new book that explains it all!
I am plagued with ground squirrels. They tunnel around and take anything and everything they want! My solution has been to make little baskets out of 1/4# hardware cloth, it is like a metal net. I plant my seedlings in the garden in these little baskets, their roots protected by the metal mesh. I havent lost a plant prtoected like this to a squirrel yet!
My favorite recipe? Easy. Take my cherry tomatoes, slice them in half, and put them in the food dryer until they are dry. These dried tomatoes are so awesome in a salad, say, in December when good fresh tomatoes are a thing of memory!
Tried container gardening for the first time last year. some things worked some didn't. Going to try again this year. Where we live we can not do composting piles, so as no to waste my kitchen leftovers and run them through my food processor and mulch them as much as possible then jst dump them into the garden . It has worked quite well. The plants have done well and even help to improve the clay in our garden.
I used old straw bales that had started to decompose one year to cover my potatoes. I grew the biggest potatoes I ever have seen! I've not been able to find any old bales like that since. Using his technique I can make my own. I'll definitely check his web site.
I've been gardening in raised beds for about five years and last year added a variety of other containers to grow tomatoes, peppers, cabbages and chives.
We've downsized our veggie garden over the years, but tomatoes are still our favorite "fruit". To prevent blossom end rot, grind up some egg shells and add to the soil. Don't panic about the tomato hornworm. They only eat a few leaves and make a mobile home for the Braconid wasp, which lays their eggs inside the hornworm caterpillar. The young larvae feed on the hornworm until they are ready to hatch and make more wasps. Nature's way of pest control without harmful sprays! The few hornworms that reach maturity turn into the magnificent Sphinx moths, another one of Nature's wonders.
Every year I improve my gardening techniques. I want to incorporate straw bale gardening this year into my veggie garden. I have raised beds for my tomatoes & peppers that I mulch. I use large containers for vine crops & flowers. I have a variety of beds all around our farm house. The hot summer was so hard on my plants these last couple of summers, I think the straw bales will give much more root protection.
My favorite gardening tip is that I sprinkle Epson salts in the holes as I plant each young plant.
I tried to do a garden last year. The soil here is so hard it did not work out well since I could not dig it up enough. Tried to make piles of dirt but that did now work out either.. Need to try a new technique this time around!