One Bale of a Garden Bed!
Of the many benefits of straw bale gardening, one of the most popular is the back-saving easier access that raised beds provide.
Some folks love it, others diss it. We enjoyed straw bale gardening for several years for ourselves and our 86-year-old mother/mother-in-law who’s thrilled to have easier access to tending garden plants.
In this article, you’ll find the why’s, hows and wherefores. We’ll show you our process followed by the exact materials you’ll need, a list of benefits, and some short how-to videos to get your straw bale garden up and growing!
Let’s start with the benefits.
12 Benefits of Straw Bale Gardening (SBG)
- It’s essentially raised beds and “deep mulch”
- Provides an early start to growing season
- A solution for problem soil
- Easy on the back and knees
- Can be wheelchair / walker accessible
- Facilitates growing more in less space
- Can be done on decks or patios
- Reduces growing time for short growing seasons
- Once set up, SGBs are easier to maintain
- Easier to tend – no need to till, hoe, or weed
- No need to construct raised bed garden frames
- It’s fun to try new gardening experiments
Why We Tried Straw Bale Gardening
Living in the woods, in an area with limited sun (lower garden), or with rocky soil (upper garden), we needed to do something new to increase production. We also wanted to get an early start on the growing season. So Straw Bale Gardening (SBG) was chosen as the main alternative in our new garden adventure for numerous reasons.
On a spectacular weekend just weeks away from the first day of Spring, we set out and treated our bales.
Setting and Conditioning the Straw Bales
Once the bales are in place, the next phase of SBG is to “condition” the bales to get them composting inside. Regular 10-10-10 can be used or some other organic fertilizer. We really like Milorganite and have been using it for years.
Milorganite is a non-burning formulation that includes a bit of iron to boost plant’s ability to make chlorophyll. More than just a fertilizer, it also has a strong deer repellent. Deer come through our woods all the time and for sure, they’ve enjoyed all the backyard buffets we and our neighbors set out for them every growing season, so it’s great to use a fertilizer that also tends to repel deer!
Your best place to buy Milorganite is from your local garden or hardware store. We like to shop local whenever we can to support local businesses plus often it’s cheaper than ordering online.
But, for convenience, especially if you don’t have a garden store nearby, you can order Milorganite from Amazon. Of course you’ll pay more for shipping heavy items, but we use to save time, (and you know the saying, “time is money”). If you don’t have a truck, it’s just nicer than hauling fertilizer in your trunk… saves your back too!
We created a couple of videos below that demonstrate how to prep straw bales to activate the nitrogen in the Milorganite. This will kick start the decomposition process that turns the interior of the bales into compost.
Milorganite also has their own succinct outline of Straw Bale Gardening article and how-to video, which may be of interest. You can find that linked in the footnotes.
Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy the instructional videos that follow on how to set up a straw bale garden next.
HOW TO SET UP A STRAW BALE GARDEN
Coleman Alderson of GardensAll talks about a much-needed renovation of his garden patch using the straw bale gardening method.
Part 1 – How to Set up Straw Bale Garden Beds
In Part 1, Coleman talks about how to set your straw bales, (even which side goes up is important), and conditioning the straw bale garden (SBG).
Part 2 – Treating the Straw Bale Garden Beds
Part 2, shows perforating the bales to allow the fertilizer to penetrate the bales.
For some of the plants near the end of the bales we plugged in some PVC “collars” to foil cutworms munching the brassicae plants.
NOTE: Plants near the ends can have a tendency to spill over the sides.
We’re very pleased with our SBG experiment! In freezing temps, with the aid of a hoop and cover, we used the Easy Tunnel Fleece, frost protection covers, and a laser gun thermometer to monitor temps, we were able to keep our plants warm enough to remain unaffected even below freezing and a bit of snow. We write more about those and more in this article on best garden tools.
Next up are some garden shots a couple months later, along with an effective support hack.
Straw Bale Gardening Update and a Trellis Hack
The straw bale method has proven to be a wonderful approach-especially given our locations. The “Lower Garden” is set under a huge tree and the soil of the “Upper Garden” is thin and rocky. Here are some updated photos that show how well things are growing.
As you can see from these updated photos, our first SBG is working out very well!