I’m excited to try a new thing this gardening season. It has a name: Straw Bale Gardening. Have you ever heard of it? I had heard little bits here and there referring to it as an aside and did not pay much attention to it – until the last time I heard it. You see, I have been praying about how to move forward in larger scale gardening because – whelp – this old ship just ain’t what she used to be. Ha ha! Seriously, I don’t have the fortitude to plow up and haul lots of stuff, nor the back strength (or consistency or time) to weed every.single.day – which is the only way to stay on top of the weeds and not let them become overwhelming. I really came to the point of giving up…but that made me exceedingly sad. So I prayed that God would show me the best way forward… and He did!! Literally the next thing I saw was a reference to someone growing something in a straw bale! Amazing! So, I will start my seeds soon and try to chronicle my progress here. In the meantime, an explanation of what Straw Bale gardening is - is in order.
Basically, you take a bale of straw or a bunch of bales of straw (not hay – straw – an important distinction) and over a period of a couple weeks, you sprinkle fertilizer and water in varying amounts to get the straw to start breaking down and becoming a wonderfully fertile place to plant your new seedlings. The happy thing is that there are no weeds to pluck and you can put them wherever you want – even on concrete or stone! You grow your garden veggies and at the end of the season you can use the spent bales of straw for rich compost wherever needed. This is so greatly appealing to me for so many reasons so I’m going to try it. The first thing I need to do is source straw bales! They are usually more plentiful in the fall, so I hope I don’t run into trouble finding some! Above is a picture of one from the book I read on it.
So, the adventure begins soon! One thing I am especially looking forward to growing are strawberries. I grew strawberries once, the usual way, but was always disappointed in the yield. I hope this gives better results… stay tuned!