by Megan at The Byron Life
Spring has arrived in Northern NSW and with its warmth my
thoughts are turning to my new abundant food garden. The one that is but a
twinkle in my mind’s eye at present.
We are currently house-minding
a wonderful old house with a big backyard and a dozen
chooks. It’s been an lesson in greener living; picking fruit from the
small, but productive, backyard orchard; caring for a flock of chickens and
meeting some wonderful green-minded folk who have shared with me their
knowledge and produce of their own gardens. I have learned
so much here and I am inspired for when we return to our own home on the coast in a
few weeks.
However, I know the challenges of the garden to which we
shall return: The beautiful, but unruly, tropical garden of ours that is dense
with established ornamental trees and
palms and very little open space. We live in a suburban area on a block less than
500m2, and most of that is taken up with house. The one area that gets a
consistent amount of sun, and would be most suitable to vegetable growing, has
some real challenges.
This sunny area is small; at least half of it is paved in
concrete and the unpaved areas have drainage problems. We have poor
soil made worse by us previously compacting down a load of sand for a small
above-ground pool (now gone). Sounds inhospitable for a new veggie garden, doesn’t
it?
On the up-side it is an area protected from wind, gets a
full day’s sun, is close to a water source (tap water at this stage, later it
will be a rainwater tank) and is within easy access to the house. And, I visit that
space several times a day as the paved area hosts the clothesline.
Previous attempts at a no-dig garden using layers of
cardboard and compost had limited success because of the poor drainage. My solution for this potential garden oasis of mine will be
to deal with the drainage problems through a drainage trench, raised garden beds
and composting to improve the soil quality. That sounds like a bit of work, but
doable.
However, I think I have stumbled across a simple and
affordable way to deal with all three issues at once: Straw bale gardening. Straw bale gardening, as I understand it, involves planting
directly into a bale of conditioned straw (not hay, it has too many grass seeds)
filling the planting holes with some compost, watering well and feeding
regularly with worm juice or seaweed solution. As the straw bale breaks down,
the plant’s roots are nourished by this newly formed compost. It is essentially
a form of container gardening with the straw bale acting as the container.
The straw bale garden can be grown anywhere, including on
concrete. And, once the bale breaks
down, after a season or two, I’ll have a rich source of compost that can be put
to use building up the soil for a more permanent raised garden bed.
What also appeals to me about this gardening idea is that it
is affordable, drainage will not be a problem and I can build up my new garden
in any shape I want. I will also be using a renewable resource for my garden
“beds”.
Right now I am taking
advantage of all of that wonderful chicken poo and straw from the chicken coop to make compost and I am growing seedlings
ready for planting in the straw bales. The next step is finding a source of
organic bales – something that hasn’t been treated with fertiliser or
pesticides. In my region there are many sugar-cane farmers, so I will search for
one that grows organically.
This is my very first post for the Simple Green Frugal Co-op
and I am hoping that within this experienced community, both readers and
writers, there will be those among you have either tried straw bale gardening,
or will be just be able to offer some advice on whether you think the idea has
any merit. I'm keen to give it a go.
Below are some good explanatory links to straw bale gardening
that I have found. Do you know of any other links on this topic?
~ Megan
Links on straw bale gardening:
21 comments:
hi megan...great idea. I saw something like this at mt recent permie group meeting. These images are inspiring and I think it is work giving it a try.
...I meant 'worth' giving it a try!
Brilliant, and it looks good! Thanks.
Straw bale gardening is new to me, Megan, but it sounds very interesting (and doable) and definitely worth giving it a try!
Megan - S'funny. Here we are, half way across the word from each other, and both of us are going to be trying straw bale gardening this year.
I am going to be trying the urine as nitrogen option :
The schedule for conditioning is as follows:
• Day 1 – sprinkle 1/2 cup of fertilizer evenly over each bale; water until it gets worked in
• Day 2 – water
• Day 3 – 1/2 cup of the fertilizer evenly per bale + water
• Day 4 – water
• Day 5 – 1/2 cup fertilizer evenly per bale + water (this is when it will begin to smell, but won’t last too long. You will also see black specks beginning – that is a good thing – the soil is developing)
• Day 6 – water
• Days 7-9 – 1/4 cup (or half of what you were using before) fertilizer per bale + water – your soil temperature will be around 125 degrees
• Day 10 – 1 cup of 10-10-10 garden fertilizer per bale + water – this is the nitrate, phosphorus, and potassium. Use a garden feed; a 5 lb bag will do 50 bales. Do NOT use weed and feed; you want NO pesticides.
After 10 days, check the temperature of bales; if it is almost too hot to touch, don’t plant yet. Plant when the temperature is under 105 degrees.
If you'd like more info, this is the link: http://www.becomingcrunchy.com/2011/06/i-finally-planted-my-straw-bale-garden/#axzz1XcXzr61F
Will you be posting the results on SGF or on The Byron Life?
Dani :)
This is a great idea, one which would work well for us as a third of our yard is pavers. Thanks so much for an informative and entertaining post.
Straw bale gardening can work very well and I look forward to seeing your progress :)
For us here's ours:
http://seemyfootprints.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-did-and-didnt-work.html
and our preferred 'no dig, raised' garden 'bed' (or bath, to be more exact!)
http://seemyfootprints.blogspot.com/2011/05/step-by-step-as-they-growgrew.html#more
the latter is great for keeping things off the ground (esp if you have drainage issues), is at a good height for planting and picking plus going over the top of paving/compacted soil and a bunch of other things.
Hope some of that helps - looking forward to seeing how you go and what you come up with for your 'problem sunny spot' :)
Hey Megan a brilliant idea, I'm going to give this a shot this summer.
I'm excited by this idea. I have an appox 4m x 1.5m veggie garden I established through a no-dig garden, but I'm always looking to expand out the area. I think the straw bales sound great. I'm keen to try this for zucchinis. I have fabulous dirt pile to use as the compost, that has been a part of my chook pen for the past 2 years - until I rearranged their pen area today. Fabulous rich soil. Can't wait. I need another weekend... lucky I've got 2 weeks holidays coming up!
Hi Megan. I love straw bale gardens. They are effective and cheap. Mine (which I blogged about here: http://www.littleecofootprints.com/2009/07/economical-and-easy-instant-vegetable-garden-in-under-an-hour.html) lasted two seasons. I started with a small square bed of only four bales and once I saw how effective it was I expanded it to be 5 bales long. Have fun :-)
Thank you everyone!
Dani ~ Thank you for the tips. I hadn't planned on using fertiliser for conditioning, just water, but I might try your "recipe".
I will come back and post an update here when the straw bale gardens are up and growing, but keep an eye on The Byron Life too for details of the project :)
Kristy, your garden area looks very similar in size to mine. I did look at using bath-tubs, but actually found them to be expensive, even second hand. I'll keep looking out for one as I think they are a great idea and I like the look of them. Kitchen sinks can be recycled too and I've even seen old fridges recycled into garden beds!
x
Megan
Tricia - you must have been commenting at the same time as me!
Thanks for your link, your garden looks fantastic. I looked up the Lens Garden link too for this post. He seems to be doing it a bit differently, using the bales as the walls of a garden bed, rather than planting into directlt, but they appear to work really well as your photo shows.
So many good ideas, thank you!
x
Being in the tropics you can eventually grown Kangkong when you get your trenches. It love moist areas and it's so yummy raw or cooked.
The wet season is coming here so I'm gearing up to plant some kangkong from some cuttings.
Hi Megan
Agreed re cost if they're purchased however we sourced our bath tubs and their frames (old tables with the tops removed) for free. It means the garden grows as we source tubs but that's ok because it means time to make more compost/chook poo/worm stuff, and to get other projects done. Purposeful 'slowness' I guess.
Another bonus of the bath tubs is we can use the same water for a week on the tubs (collected under the 'plug hole'), just alternating which buckets feed which beds, or we can reuse the water on the fruit trees etc. If you manage to get hold of one to try I reckon you'll be hooked. :)
Thanks for introducing me to this Megan, you've got me thinking all creatively now on some things "outside the box" I could do in our vegie garden. We have an old bathtub in our garden, but it is sitting in the wrong spot full of soil, so we've been putting off moving it. I might just be motivated enough to get onto that today!
I've seen some great straw bale gardens. They also serve very well when you use them as a no dig garden, as a wind break too. Here is a good link I found a while ago:
http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com/straw-bale-gardening.html
Thank you for that link Rhonda. It's very comprehensive.
x
Hi megan, My dad has raised vege gardens straight on pavers, for them it meant no kikuyu coming through and a ready made path around. The gardens have only been in for a couple of months and they are already getting heaps from it. I make my raised beds from old fences, and think it really is the best option for the vege patch.
Just wanted to reinforce the watering - straw bale gardening requires a great deal of water...on my third year now/
We done this at our place on the weekend using old sleepers as the border to finish it off and to keep the bed continuous as it all breaks dons and composts. Oh the pictures are so inspiring! Great links Thanks for the tips on the watering :-)
Welcome Megan. I look forward to reading about your straw bale experiences. Sincerely, Emily
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