Straw Bale Gardening

Straw bale gardening has been around for years. Amazingly so, there are people who have never heard of this concept. I, too had never heard of it and was very skeptical. My sister e-mailed me several articles that she found on the Internet and I decided to give it a try. I am now happy to report that even though it is the first of September, I am still getting tomatoes and peppers off of my vines. Straw bale gardening might be stereotyped as the "lazy" gardener because it suggests that you will have a lot less bending and stooping and very little to no weeds to deal with. I tried both the straw bale gardening and the traditional gardening this summer and I have been very pleased with my straw bales. I followed the instructions exactly as they were given to me, using plants instead of seeds and have no weeds and my knees are very thankful because I have not had to stoop or bend very far to tend to my garden. My traditional garden has long dried up albeit for a few green tomatoes, but my straw bale garden is still thriving as you can see from the photo I took. I cannot promise you that you will have the success with it that I did, but again, I too was skeptical but decided to try it anyway. There was a brief period of time when I had grass growing in them and I almost gave up, especially when being teased by my family and friends of having a "grass garden", but the grass eventually withered away and I have been left with a very gorgeous, bountiful straw bale garden. I have outlined the steps below as described in the website, www.beginner-gardening.com/straw-bale-gardening.html.

1. Begin with tightly strung straw bales. Four bales were used in my garden. Place your straw bales where you would like them to stay, since when they become wet they will slowly begin to break down, the strings may loosen or break and you may need to place a few stakes around them to hold them together. Mine have only broken down slightly and I have not had to do this.

2. Wet the straw bales down for the first three days, watering them down a couple of times a day. I watered mine once in the morning and once in the evening.