Straw Bale Garden Boxes

[Tmheldt78]

Hello everyone. I just wanted to share one of the projects I started this year with my straw bale garden.
Last year was my first year of straw bale gardening, and while I loved the concept, the bales looked fairly unsightly towards the end of the growing season.
That's when I decided I was going to construct some sort of wooden boxes to hide the rotting bales from view.
It does sacrafice the ability to plant into the sides of the bales, but it also gave me something to support small planter boxes for herbs and flowers.
Before spring, I went and bought some wood and started construction. I'm definitely not a carpenter, so I came up with the best idea I could:

 

[Chuck]

Hello everyone. I just wanted to share one of the projects I started this year with my straw bale garden.
Last year was my first year of straw bale gardening, and while I loved the concept, the bales looked fairly unsightly towards the end of the growing season.
That's when I decided I was going to construct some sort of wooden boxes to hide the rotting bales from view.
It does sacrafice the ability to plant into the sides of the bales, but it also gave me something to support small planter boxes for herbs and flowers.
Before spring, I went and bought some wood and started construction. I'm definitely not a carpenter, so I came up with the best idea I could:
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Absolutely gorgeous

 

[BigC]

Thats brilliant
How do you plant into the straw...just looking to educate myself here
and what plants do you specifically grow...what works and what doesn't
interesting topic
Regards
C

 

[Tmheldt78]

Thats brilliant
How do you plant into the straw...just looking to educate myself here
and what plants do you specifically grow...what works and what doesn't
interesting topic
Regards
C

Thanks! My girlfriend picked up a book for me called "Straw Bale Gardens" by Joel Karston a couple years ago. I thought it was really interesting, so I started my first experiment with it last year.

The first step for straw bale gardening is conditioning the bales. They have to be fully saturated with water to begin the process, but I got mine early this season and left them out in the weather for a few weeks so I skipped that step.
Then the bales get dosed with high nitrogen ferts and water, and that process takes almost two weeks. The purpose is to get the interior portion of the bales to begin the compost process, and you are basically creating a brand new growing medium that's weed-free except for what tries to grow from the straw itself.
At the end of conditioning, the bales will have cooled back down from the initial heat-up from the compost process, and you can plant directly into them. If planting seeds, you just place a layer of potting mix on top to hold the seeds in place until they can germinate and get roots into the bale.
At the end of the growing season, I took all of the leftover straw and threw it into a wheelbarrow that I left out over winter. This spring it was mostly broken down, so i used it to top dress my squash bed.

This season I have pole beans, cucumbers, broccoli, potatoes and four different types of determinate tomatoes planted directly in the bales. I also had a small crop of radishes that I harvested before the cucumbers began to take off.

Sorry for the long-winded post, but I can talk gardening and plants all day! (My girlfriend can vouch for that too haha!)

 

[BigC]

Excellent many thanks.....
worth looking into, for me on a smaller scale.

 

[Gardy]

Nice work

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Hi all! Can you tell me where I can find reliable and durable storage for logs to keep them in good condition and protect them from moisture and weather conditions? Maybe you can recommend some stores or manufacturers?

Suggest you start a thread in 'introductions', give it a title like "Log storage solutions?", that will come up on new posts which a lot of people check out, and not interrupt someone else's thread.
Personally I use three fence panels, open side facing away from the prevailing wind and a roof of corrugated plastic. A six foot cube that holds a lot of logs.
Welcome to the forum, do you garden? I find wood ash a valuable addition to my soil.