Grober Green

Green beans, lettuce, leeks, peas, radishes, tomatoes.

• The soil has settled down an inch below box surface, so thinking of adding a bit more of soil mix.
• As the boxes are above ground, they seem to need more watering.

A 2 X2 square foot  of  Green beans.

On May 31st 20101 added  some tomato plants costing 25 cents each into the straw bales that had not been treated with any fertilizer at all. However, they had bee regularly watered over a period of 2 weeks, so some decomposition should have taken place.

This was done to see if there was any difference between the growth and viability plants growing in  the bales pre-soaked in “digestate” from the biodigester and those with nothing added at all.

Hoping to add some more straw bales this week that have been pre-soaked in “digestate”.

Below is a photo of some peppers planted on May 31st in the straw bales without “digestate”.

photo above of  green bean sprouting in straw bale.

Just a light coating of soil on the top.

27th May;  straw bales soaked with digestate

Germination

• Beans and Tomatoes have germinated.
• No sign of peppers but looks like peas may come through tomorrow.

5 green beans sprouting in the top of straw bale

27th May : Square foot Garden

Composition 1/3 sheep 1/3 peat moss 1/3 vermiculite

Germination

• Everything has germinated helped by day temperatures of 30 -32 degrees Celsius ( 90 degrees F)
• Also have been able to keep the mixture moist just with night watering — holds it well

• top left – Green Beans
• bottom right – Radishes
• diagonals – Beets

Setting up Straw Bale and Square foot garden at Mini Lakes Community near Aberfoyle, Guelph.

18th May : Square foot Garden

Composition 1/3 sheep 1/3 peat moss 1/3 vermiculite

Planted:

• Green Beans,  2 foot square, 8 per square = 32 seeds
• Beets, 2 x 2 foot square, 16 per  square = 64 seeds
• Radishes, 2 foot square, 16 per square = 64 seeds
• Tomatoes, 2 foot square , 1 per square = 4 seeds
• Cucumbers, 2 foot square,  2 per square  = 8 seeds
• Spinach, 2 X 2 foot square, 9 per square = 36 seeds

18th May: Straw Bale Garden

6 straws bales soaked with digestate.

As these were planted from soil mix on top of straw bale
Do not need this if planting from seedlings.

planted:

• green beans, 2 bales, row of 6 seeds
• yellow beans, 2 bales, row of  6 seeds
• tomatoes, 1 bale,  row of  5  seeds
• peppers, 1bale, row of 5 seeds

3 straw bales soaked with water

These are being used as a control to assess growth of bales soaked with digestate and those with nothing except water
not planted yet:

Hay or Straw Bale Gardening is a method of gardening in which plants are grown in straw bales, usually wheat or oat straw, rather than in soil. Because it is a mostly soil-less method, it is sometimes considered a form of hydroponic gardening. It is suitable for many types of annuals, and is especially used for vegetable gardening.

Advantages of Straw Bale Gardening

There are many reasons why gardeners turn to straw or hay bale gardens.

1. Probably the most common is poor or difficult soil.
2. A straw bale requires no tilling or mixing of soils to allow for drainage.
3. Because the plants are a couple of feet off of the ground, it also makes gardening much easier for the disabled, older gardeners, or just for those who want to avoid back pain.
4. Bales are far, far less prone to weeds, and Bale Gardening devotees report fewer pest problems. This means that straw bale gardening makes organic or low-chemical gardening all the easier. 

See what Duncan says — click here

Choose the Bales

• Most straw bale gardeners recommend wheat straw, success with oat straw as well as mixed grass or alfalfa bales. Do not use pine straw.
• When choosing your bales you’ll want them bound with synthetic twine, which won’t rot and allow your planting bed to collapse (if you cannot find synthetic twine, you’ll need to use some sort of stakes as support).
• Try to find older bales that have already begun rotting when you can, though not those that are so far gone as to have lost some of their structure.

Before you start the curing process, place your bales.

• They will be constantly wet once you start curing, and will be very heavy and difficult to move.
• Most bale gardeners prefer to have the bales oriented with the straw vertical for better root penetration, but this is a matter of preference.

Cure your Bales

The curing process will take about ten days, or longer if you are not using chemicals.

• First, soak the bales and keep them wet for three days, using fine water spray.

Organically

• Use blood meal (2lb per bale), fish fertilizer – or Digestate from Manure Digester .
• Wrap the bales in plastic.
• Soak the bales every day for 4 – 5 days with water and fertilizer.
• After the 4- 5 days, the straw is softer.
• After 10 days ready for planting
• Remove the plastic.

Regular

• Wrap the bales in plastic.
• Soak in water
• On the fourth day sprinkle the bales lightly with about five ounces of ammonium nitrate.
• After the 4-5 days, the straw is softer.
• Continue soaking, and on the seventh day add another two and a half ounces of ammonium nitrate. Continue soaking, and on the tenth day add one cup of 13-13-13 or 10-10-10 fertilizer and water in.
• After 10 days ready for planting
• Remove the plastic

To cure without chemicals, you may to keep the bales soaking for around three or four weeks to allow them to start breaking down. When you start to soak them, they will become noticeably warm or even hot. Do not plant until they have cooled down.

Tomatoes, peppers pop up in straw bale gardens

 Grow and Enjoy

• Depending on what you’re growing and how much fertilizer and compost you use on the bales, you may need to fertilize lightly throughout the growing season.
• Small amounts of artificial fertilizer , or a compost tea..
•  Unlike traditional gardening, your plants will be getting next to no nutrients other than what you add to the straw (though over fertilizing is often more dangerous for your plants than under fertilizing is).
• It is also very important to keep the bales moist throughout the growing season.
  • The bales should retain water surprisingly well, and many gardeners report that they actually use significantly less water with straw bale gardening than they did with traditional methods, but you will certainly need to keep an eye on your plants to make sure that they don’t dry out between waterings.
• One great thing about hay bale gardens is that you will probably not be able to overwater them, as they will allow the excess to drain right out.
• You should be able to reuse your wheat straw bales for one year.
  • After that you can compost them, or just break them up where they sit and put new bales over them.
  • This will enrich the soil below and encourage worms to come in and improve it.

Plants to Plant

• Annuals of vegetables, herbs or flowers will love it.
• Bales will be history in 1-2 years.
• Young plants can go straight in. Pull apart or use a trowel and depending on the state of the straw, put a handful of compost soil in too, then let the straw go back into place.

1. Seeds can be planted on top if you put a layer of compost soil there first.

2. Top heavies like corn and okra, are not so good, unless you grow dwarf varieties. With straw bale gardening it’s hard to put solid stakes in so big tomato plants are out, although they will happily dangle over the edge.

3. Each bale should take up to half a dozen cucumbers, trailing down. Squash, zucchini, melons — maybe 3 plants, or a couple of tomato plants per bale with one or two herbs and leafy veggies in between. Four pepper plants will fit or 12-15 bean or pea plants.

4. There’s no limit and why not poke in around the side a plant or two of some flowering annual for colour and companion if you like.

5. Once every 1-2 weeks water in a liquid organic feed, such as compost tea or fish emulsion. Tip some worms on top if you want to use your bales only one season.

6. It’s simple to pull out any wayward grain seeds with straw bale gardening, but with hay bales you may need to occasionally give them a haircut rather than try and pull the tenacious new sprouts out.

• Not recommend bale growing with root crops, as the roots will be compressed by the straw and will be difficult to harvest.
• Very tall crops, such as corn or pole beans, will tip the bale over without some sort of support system. Smaller plants are easier to transplant into bales, so bale growers often transplant somewhat younger than soil gardeners.

Spacing of Plants

• 2 Tomatoes
• 2 Yellow Squash
• 4 peppers
• 6 -8 cucumbers
• 12-15 beans
• space lettuce 6 inches apart

Tips

1. Use one or or as many bales as you need and in any pattern.

• Because straw bale gardening is raised, it’s easy to work with, so make sure you allow for handy access.

2. Wheat or oat straw is best as it’s the stalks left from harvesting grain with very few seed left.

• Hay bales are less popular as they are made of whole plants with mucho seeds and often other weeds in. Use what you can get locally — it may even be lucerne or pea straw bales.

3. Put the bales in the exact place, because it’s too hard to even nudge these monsters once you’ve got your little straw bale garden factory in full swing.

4. You’ll get one good season out of a bale and usually two, albeit with a bit of sag.

• It makes for great compost or mulch when finished with.

5. Lay them lengthwise to make planting easy by just parting the straw.

• Make sure the string is running around each bale and not on the side touching the ground in case it’s degradable twine.

6. Keep the twine there to hold it all in place and if it does rot, bang some stakes in at both ends, or chock up the ends with something heavy, like rocks, bricks, boxes or plant containers.

7. Starting off with slightly aged bales of about 6 months is best, but if they’re new, thoroughly soak with water and leave for 5 or so days whilst the temperature rises and cooks the inside, then they will cool and be ready for planting.

• They won’t be composting much inside yet, that takes months, but you don’t want that initial hot cooking of your plants.

8. Some sneaky people speed up the process of producing microbes and rot by following a 10-day pre-treatment regime of water and ammonium nitrate on the top of each bale. But, hey, organic gardeners are a patient lot aren’t we, so let’s follow nature?

9. Keep watered. That’s going to be your biggest task.

• Straw bale gardening uses more water than a normal garden, so set up a system now. It may be that swilling out the teapot on it each day is enough in your area, or you may need to keep the hose handy.
• Plant flowers around the base for a fun look to your bale garden

by Larry McCuaig

When I retired last year, I acquired a small property near Kemptville with about half an acre of grass. When I took soil samples I found that about two thirds of the proposed growing area consisted of a thin layer of topsoil (two inches) over stony fill. The previous owner had done this to level off the yard. The other one third contained a thick layer of sandy loam over deep sand.

Since I was already limited in growing space, I decided to find a way of growing crops without soil. My problem turned out to be fortuitous, since my goal is to improve poor soils of all types with natural, practical means.

I decided in favour of the strawbale system after reading an article in Organic Gardening which showed how, by using bales to grow plants in, problems of soil-borne diseases and insects can be avoided (as well as avoiding weeding and cultivating).

From my work with Seeds of Hope and the Y2K Regional Preparedness Group, I realized the value of the strawbale system to anyone who wants to grow vegetables, but has little or no soil, or very little space. The bale system is ideal for them because it can even be used on a balcony.

The System

The use of strawbales for greenhouse growing apparently has a long history and has been practiced in many countries. I found a lot of technical information in an Agriculture Canada Publication on greenhouse growing. I adapted the greenhouse chemical-based system to an outdoor all-organic one.

The main advantage of the bale system, aside from not requiring soil or much space, is that it provides copious amounts of air, water, heat and slow release nutrition to the plant roots. Therefore it should be most useful with heavy feeding crops, especially those that love lots of organic matter and warmth, such as cucumbers, pumpkins, melons, and tomatoes. These are the main crops I am growing, though I am testing it out on peppers and potatoes.

Disadvantages include an extended preparation period for the bales—wetting them and activating the breakdown process. It is also necessary to incorporate a slow release fertilizer, or use a liquid feed throughout the growing season—or both. I decided on liquid feeding, with compost/manure extract, which is less expensive and more readily available than solid fertilizers such as bone and blood meal. Backyard or balcony gardeners may not want to use manure extract, so they might prefer a commercial organic fertilizer.

I am using 30 bales, ten of wheat straw and 20 of barley straw, so I can compare them. Wheat straw is much denser than barley, holds a greater amount of water and breaks down a lot slower. Barley, on the other hand, has greater air space and turns to compost much sooner.

The Procedure (for all bale and crop types)

After daytime temperatures are above 10 degrees C, place bales in growing location and begin watering them at least twice a day for three days or until they stay wet inside (this starts the fermentation process).

When bales are thoroughly wet, add a little fertilizer (soak with dilute manure or compost juice or bury solid fertilizer in holes in the bale). If possible, calculate the amount of fertilizer equivalent to 50 grams of Nitrogen per bale.

Check the temperature of each bale over the next week or so. It should rise to 50-60 degrees C (uncomfortably hot when you stick your hand in the bale). Keep the bales from drying out by adding a little water each day—not enough to leach out the fertilizer.

Let the bales cool down below 35 degrees and soak thoroughly with a hose to leach out any excess salts. If the bales are not off the ground, you may want to have a plastic sheet under them so you can catch the run-off and recycle it through the bales.

Plant seeds or transplants (better) in 1 to 4 holes in each bale (depending on the rooting space needed by your plants), along with a goodly amount of growing mix, compost or sterilized topsoil. If the bale has not softened up sufficiently to pull material out with your hands, use a keyhole saw or serrated knife to make the holes.

Water the plants as needed (pumpkins and cucumbers will need daily watering at the peak of their growing cycle) and fertilize periodically by top-dressing with solid, or watering-in the liquid, materials.

Note: I produced a variety of liquid feeds for my system, using well-rotted cow, horse or chicken manure, or composts made from fish waste and peat moss. I added these to 50 gallon plastic barrels, which I then filled with water at a rate of five gallons of compost to 45 gallons of water. The chicken manure has the highest Nitrogen content, so care must be used in its application to prevent development of “legginess” in young plants.

As of early June, all my bale plants are growing nicely and I do not have to do any weeding or cultivating. I just mow the grass around and between the bales.

And unlike my backyard garden here in Ottawa, where the cutworms have decimated my Brassicas and earwigs come out of the ground at night to gobble up my young cantaloupe plants, there is no sign of any insect damage in the straw bale garden.