Straw Bale Gardens
Tutorial On How To Make From Scratch, The Straw Bale Method
A few days ago I went to visit a friend who is helping out on a newly forming permaculture farm not far from Hamar in Norway. This time there was a big group of people who went for the weekend to help out up there and I met some really nice people. One of the goals was to turn a huge ball of straw into seperate blocks which are then placed where you want them and suddenly transform into firstly a raised bed, secondly a huge water holder and lastly a "self made compost".
If you haven't heard of this principle then here is a good image of what it looks like. I will use for this post pictures from Gardeners.com as we were only making the bales at this time and so I don't have any of my own photos to use.
I like this website because they go "all out" on it, so go check it out to see the extreme versions of this great method of gardening.
The basics though are so easy. Its especially perfect if you have bad soil and don't want to break your back by digging and turning soil for hours on end. No thanks! And like this place where I am at the moment , it has NO soil. Its rock-bed. Since the term "no dig" garden has been formed, I really don't see why people are still digging up gardens. I was and most likely still will try pallet gardening here, but still that involves using some soil, which would mean a lot of physical work and would be crazy. I just started seeing a chiropractor to fix my back from doing hard physical work, so im retired now from lifting heavy stuff!
To carry up Straw of any amount, is much lighter than to carry up soil that's for sure!
The First Step.
At the weekend we first had to make the straw bales. We had a book - "The" Book.. No, Not the Bible! It was a book on straw bale gardening. When I arrived it was already set up to make the bales and it was by using the traditional method and they even had made the "contraption" as shown in the book. This (Left) is the one from the farm. I had to draw around it as wood is the same colour as straw! The idea is that you pack straw flat into that black tub there which creates the shape, then place that on the board you can see which is under a press. Before this though you must prepare the string used to tie the bale up with otherwise you cant get it on any other way.Here's my first ever Straw bale!
The Next Things To Do..
You must added Nitrogen. There is quite a bit of speculation as too how much you should add, I personally would either add feathers, hair and crumbs of animal horns into the straw and a nice thick layer of top soil on the bale which you need anyway. You must also soak the bale wet until its dripping out from the bottom. This will firstly hold water to feed what your growing, and also inside the straw mass will start to compost and being moist helps a lot.
Put the bale (if not already) where you want it to stay. Then as seen in the picture (Below) you can either cut out a bowl shape and add soil (if your using small plants) or you can add directly on-top, a layer of soil. This is ready now for seeds to be placed in.
There are many things you can do with these, imagine you have 50 of them?!
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I would like to see other peoples older straw bale garden's that have been running a while already :)
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Makes a quick, easy and cheep raised bed. A while back I placed 6 bales in a swamp. Just to try this method. I Prepaired them adding promix, compost, gardensoil eggshells ad bonemeal. I planted 1 Bubblegum clone in each, They grew healty, and I had a very good September harvest. This method worked well for the first season. Second had more problems. I would replace them yearly....in the swamp anyway.
Fucking LEGEND! thats very cool :) In USA?
Ive often thought to do a natural hydro grow also, like a raft floating with the roots in water tied near a waterfall of something. Hihi I LOVE IT! the crazier the better!!
👍😃 in Ontario Canada. Northern gorilla grower since 1996. This year all legal meds, feels weird. Almost like a POW being realeased. Sound of a Helicopter sets my heart racing and adrenaline pumping. I dont know if that will ever go away. Lol
HAHAHAHAHA! fucking legend!
very happy our steemit paths have crossed!
Ya man me too. Very cool.👊. Keep it interesting.
Never Change!
This is amazing. I have never heard of straw bales being used this way. I have a friend and her family in Majorca who practice permaculture. Will have to see if she knows about this method.
If I could get straw it would suit the rocky ground here. Great article thanks. 😎
Thanks guys! Yes you should share the idea :) I think ill be doing it here as its rock here also lol
Thanks guys! Yes you should share the idea :) I think ill be doing it here as its rock here also lol
A friend of mine was into the idea of looking into autark lifestyles, so this should be interesting for her. I am going to show it to her, maybe that will make her join Steemit.
What is the meaning of autark?
Living independent from society and the economy. Thought that word would translate 1 : 1 into english, but I was wrong there.
I've heard of the straw bale method. But never used it myself. Looks like it works pretty well!
I think some straw will be on my pathway somewhere soon and ill get to do it here! 😁
Oh man! I've had this saved on a new tab to read all day.
I'm thinking about applying this on our fruit trees at the ranch. What happens is that our soil is good until a certain depth, so when the trees are growing it goes all good until the roots reach the deeper soil, which suffocates them.
By using bales we could make a box and raise the productive soil height, that way when the roots reach their natural depth and spread to the sides they should encounter our productive soil instead of the deeper mudy one.
At least it's much easier to fill boxes with bales then it is to fill with pure soil.
Hi man! That's great you found some chill time and its inspired you! I dont know much about trees,but are you meaning to plant new ones? You could also build it around the existing tress,and new roots would form in the dark,is this true?
Kinda, what we have seen is that when my dad planted fruit trees there a couple years back, they were growing just fine, and all of a sudden they stopped.
After further investigation we discovered that our land is productive up until a certain depth, after that it becomes to mudy for the roots, it suffocates them.
The trees he planted deliver its roots straight down and then they spread to the sides, so the solution would be to build a box and fill it with soil, that way raising the soil height, at least the productive part, so it gives more room before the roots spread sideways.
Our solution would be to build some wodden boxes full of straw and plant new trees in there, and maintain it like that until the roots go down and spread. It's kinda confusin to explain hahahaha
I wonder if you could fill the base of the hole with rocks so they're more likely to spread the roots out? It's wierd that happens, I've never heard of it... what kind of trees are they?
Basicaly all kinds of fruit trees we've tried could not grow more then a bit until they sufocated.
Btw my dad was telling me the other day that he's tried something with the Lime tree.. He used 2 or 3 car tires to act as a "raiser", to increase the height. He then stacked the tires and filled them with soil and planted the Lime. The lime grew so, when it was big enough and the roots spreaded on the good soil beneath there was no problem.
I'll ask him if he sends some photos.
Genius! Sounds like we could learn a lot from your Dad!
Oie, yeah he has some crazy ideas sometimes. It not only solved his problem but also recycled 2 tyres.
This is a very good overview of straw bale gardening! If you are interested and a step-by-step tutorial please check out my channel @brewcitygardener where I cover every aspect of straw bale gardening. If you like it, give it a resteem! Thanks!
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