Frugal Feeds | Straw Bale Intensive Gardening

Raw Diet Garden Start:

The predicted storm hasn't come in yet today so I was able to get the pictures I promised. Here I will tell you how you can have a trouble free intensive garden of your own.

One week before you are ready to start putting in seeds find a local farmer that sells straw bales. You don't want to get hay bales because they will have a bunch of hay seed in them, and they are more expensive. Straw bales are made up of the stalks without seed after harvesting is done processing them. Mine are four feet long, three feet high and 1 1/2 feet deep. Each one of mine was $7.00 because they are organic. You can find them for as little as $3.00 a piece. When you buy them make sure you have had a few days of warm sunny weather right before you buy them otherwise the rain soaked bales weight a lot! Wear gardening gloves when working with the straw because tiny shards of straw will give you unpleasant splinters otherwise.

You can just lay down one bale and cover it with fertilizer and manure for a small garden or you can do as I did for a much larger intensive garden.

I placed mine fairly far from the house because that area of the yard gets the most sun all day long. The location is also close to my compost pile and a work table.

I set up four bales with ends overlapping by half of a foot. Make sure you set them up so that the twine holding them together is parallel to the ground like so:

Place a fencing post against each bale to give it extra support. Straw alone will drink up a lot of water so the combination of straw and your large garden soil area work together. The straw helps keep the soil warm and in place while the soil helps keep the straw moist and provides nourishment for the plants that you grow on it.

To fill this amount of straw bales you will need one large sack of peat moss, three sacks of general compost, three sacks of mushroom compost, three sacks of top soil and one large sack of well rotted manure. Put in one sack of each compost, one sack of top soil and 1/3 of the peat moss and manure and mix well with a hula hoe. Repeat with each layer, mixing well each time, until all of it has been used. Break up any lumps that are as big as a potato, they crumble pretty easily by hand.

Using a garden hose thoroughly soak the straw bales and soil mixture. Now wait a week. While you are waiting the garden will warm up and breakdown some. During this week you can shop for seeds and start seedlings indoors for plants like tomatoes, squashes, sunflowers, peppers, watermelon, other melons, etc. You won't be planting any of those starts for a month though.

You can also plan your garden this week. Because you will be planting so many vegetables beside each other you will want to get acquainted with which plants grow well together and which don't. (See a compilation page here). A simple way to think about it is to grow root vegetables next to above ground vegetables, like carrots next to lettuces. The carrots do most of their growing underground while the lettuces do most of their growing above ground, allowing both to use the sun and soil to their best advantage. Because the soil is deep you will have long, luscious carrots, beets and Asian radishes.

Looking from the bottom of the picture to the top I planted two types of watermelons in the soil right up against the straw bale. The watermelon plants will love the extra warmth that this bale gets in the western facing direction. The plant will grow over the bale and the fruits can be set into slings tied to stakes in the front to keep them off of the ground and out of bugs easy reach. Behind the watermelon marjoram and sage plants are seeded. Behind those are tomatoes and basil. Behind those are carrots and chives. In the center is kale and collards. These enjoy the sun but not the heat so they are in the coolest part of the soil. They will also help shade more tender plants that are behind them, on the eastern facing side of the garden. Behind the kale and collards are basil, chervil, dill and sage. Behind the herbs are many different lettuces in two long rows. At the most eastern end of the soil are planted tomatillos which will enjoy the morning sun but be relieved from the late afternoon heat.

Looking at this picture, from the right to the left, it is oriented south to north. In the soil closest to the bale on the right are Walla Walla onions, followed by beets and then radishes. This is duplicated on the north facing side.

On the top of the bale on the left side you see soil mixed with straw. Here are planted nasturtiums, borage, johnny jump ups and marigold. All of these flowers are edible but they also help deter pests. The nasturtium will trail over the bale, the borage and marigold will create height while the johnny jump ups will create low cover. To plant into the bales you want to use a garden trowel to break through the packed straw and create 6 inch deep pockets. You will end up pulling out some chunks of straw as you go along, just set them aside to add to the top. Once you have carefully made several of these pockets fill them with your soil mixture or planting mix. Sow your seeds and cover lightly with more soil and a small amount of the loosened straw.

Behind my dog, against the ground, you see small pockets of straw with soil. This is where I have sown early spring snap peas. Above the peas you see a small mass of black netting tucked into the twine of the bale. Once you have your seeds in you will want to stretch netting over the garden. This is a bit of a hassle but well worth it. Set up four thick plastic stakes, 4 feet tall, at the corners of your bales. Stretch the unfolded netting over the stakes. It is best if you have someone to help you, but it can be done on your own, just takes much longer and is more tricky. Once you are sure that you have the netting evenly over the garden poke the stakes through a hole and slide the netting down the stake to about 1/2 of a foot above the garden. Tuck the excess netting into the lowest bale twine. Do this all the way around. In the gaps between each bale you will want to carefully, but tautly, tie the netting to the twine. You don't want to leave enough room for any critters to squeeze through the netting to your garden. Cats think it is a litter box, squirrels think it is a great place to hide their food. Raccoons think you grew the garden for them. And dogs think it is a great place to dig and otherwise create chaos. As your garden grows you will need to readjust the height of the netting, which means un-tucking and untying the netting, resetting it and then re-tucking and retying. It is a pain, but it only takes half an hour every few weeks. The netting will also keep birds from eating from the garden (as long as you keep it 1/2 a foot above the garden and taut) and if you have a sudden cold snap the netting helps keep the warming cover safely over the vegetables without crushing them. It also helps diffuse heavy rain drops to some extent.

Now all you need to do for the next month is make sure that your garden and your indoor seed starts remain moist, but not soaking and raise the netting as needed.