In this video, I share 4 reasons to grow veggies in a straw bale garden! Did you know you can grow vegetables in straw bales? It’s true! Straw bale gardening is a great way to grow vegetables and other plants and solves problems that raised bed gardens, earth bed gardens and container gardens have!
In this video, we’ll discuss why you may want to grow in straw bales. It’s easy, cheap, convenient, reusable and sustainable!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Intro To Straw Bale Gardening
1:19 Reason #1: Cost
2:24 Reason #2: Flexibility
5:25 Reason #3: Soil Problems
6:53 Reason #4: Sustainability
9:56 Who Should Garden In Straw Bales
11:53 Adventures With Dale
If you have any questions about how to straw bale garden, have questions about growing fruit trees or want to know about the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and garden hacks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!
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42 Comments
If you enjoyed this video, please "Like" and share to help increase its reach! Thanks for watching 😊TIMESTAMPS for convenience:
0:00 Intro To Straw Bale Gardening
1:19 Reason #1: Cost
2:24 Reason #2: Flexibility
5:25 Reason #3: Soil Problems
6:53 Reason #4: Sustainability
9:56 Who Should Garden In Straw Bales
11:53 Adventures With Dale
The old straw most be good for compost
Cool. So this year I’m transforming an unused arena to a garden. I have inherited some raised beds but I know I won’t plant all of them because of the expense. However, after seeing your video I can rebuild some of those raised beds , AND use some straw ales for more plants. Win win. Thanks for the idea.
Millennial's always crack me up when they come up with ridiculous ideas that they think they are the first ones to ever think of it and try it, then simultaneously tell their audiences that "it's a great idea" Good luck with your tomato roots rotting from drowning in compacted straw after a heavy rain kid.
Plant mustard in the mean time! That should help with nematodes.
We had tried these a few years ago, it was pretty much a bust, don’t take it the wrong way, we did have a tremendous Batch of bush green beans!, the squash just rotted, the cucumbers only yield us maybe 12 cukes, and the tomato, yes only one plant had 5 tomatoes but we had black rot. We tore it out and now we do garden boxes, the straw bale gardening was just a waste of money
I’m excited to watch this new project.
I'm looking forward to following the straw bale instructions because you're so right about the price of pots and I'd like to grow a few more things . Also because I live in Florida I wouldn't have to worry about pots blowing away during a storm .
P.S. the buckets are getting just as expensive as the pots .
This is a really good channel!
Spring is a few weeks away, and I am freaking out at the state of my stone fruit blossoms. Every time the forecast drops below 30F, I begin to worry. There always seems to be a warm spell in January or February that causes the buds to swell early most years.
I have seen straw bale gardens before. The two biggest complaints I hear are that they result in root rot during abnormally rainy weather, and they are usually full of wheat seeds waiting to germinate. I think that using dried corn stalks (corn hay) in place of wheat straw may fix the seeding problem. Perhaps it is not easy to find corn hay outside of the corn belt. I grew up in Ohio. I have read that tomatoes can become more resistant to wilt if you treat them with aspirin when they are young. I have not tried it myself, but have heard good things.
Now that I live in W WA, straw bales are not nearly as easy or cheap to acquire in the city. WA has agricultural regions, where Ohio pretty much has the whole state. Our climate is closer to Southern England than anywhere in the U.S. The worst thing is that Winter rains and temperatures encourage a wide variety of molds and fungi. There is a period in Spring where something like straw will become toxic to plants if they are not drenched in fungicide. Everybody who visits Seattle thinks it will be rainy 24/7/365. If it manages to rain at all during the Summer, it is rarely enough to even wet the soil.
P.S. plastic bins from the Dollar Store are usually WAY cheaper than anything you will buy in a plant shop. The bins they sell as tiny garbage cans work very well as tree pots. Plastic Solo cups make great starter pots for a variety of plants. They even make plastic 'Grow Bags' that are designed to be super cheap pots. The issue with grow bags is that the medium eventually starts to shrink away from the edges of the bag. It can be difficult to keep things properly hydrated.
Appreciate the sweatshirt! RIP.
Do you really mean "hay" or "straw"?
Hay is green & full of seeds.
Straw is dry material.
Good to see dale super enthused ^_^
Very cool! Thank you so much! Send my love to Dale. I'm glad you're so good to him. ❤️
Oooh! If you grow coffee, please do a tutorial on growing it.
I look forward to seeing more of your staw bale garden adventures. My father-in-law grew tomatos and peppers in straw bales at his Oak Island, NC home several years ago with much success.
Dale is such a good boy.
🤣this is a huge waste of time! Been there done that! NONONO!😋
I collected bales from my neighbors just after Halloween & inoculated them with mushrooms & then placed them on top of my newly planted asparagus patch to protect it from winter weather. I even secretly threw mushroom spawn over my fence because my backyard neighbor talks a lot abt foraging. She’ll be so happy.
Such a timely video. I recently purchased a book on straw bale gardening and have been debating the idea. My hay guy is out of straw bales right now so I will have to wait a couple of months for the new cutting.
I lived in Wilmington for few years
Interested to see how your tomato plants do!
Definitely doing this. Good addition to my container garden
Very interesting idea. Excited to see how it goes. I wonder if some some plant roots would have a challenging time growing thru the straw vs soil.
This year I will be experimenting with mix of compost and straw+leaves growing medium. I think it will be the best solution.
AWESOME! I have a ton of bales that we had our 5 malamutes and pyrenees dogs use as beds and perches in the dog run over winter to keep them off of "yellow snow", and ones stacked around my greenhouse! I was seriously considering straw bale gardens this year! Super pumped one of my fav gardeners on youtube is starting a series on them!!! So Exciting!!!!
Could I use salt marsh hay bales?
If you use the straw that you have as a mulch, does it still have to cure? Also, where do you get it? Lowe's at Porters Neck and the Eastwood HD in town only have pine straw.
Awesome! I had no idea that you could do this. This would work great in Florida too! I can’t wait to see how you plant in it! I really really wanted an alternative to a raise garden bed as the fire ants are awful here year round! So I think this would be perfect!!! Thank you.
I was going to say; I know one really good reason not to use them. But, you claim this is a good way to grow tomatoes, and I have a water shortage in the summer. I was thinking of digging a hole and setting the intire bale in the ground.
Please make sure the straw is not treated with herbicides.
I enjoyed this video especially your cost break down. M
Following from MA
Great ideas, thanks for another great video. One thought I wanted to share – the 3rd year spent straw under your fruit trees that you mentioned is almost ready to be removed and replaced with the straw from the banana plants — after you move it, you might try growing winecap mushrooms on it. That would give you a 4th and final year for the straw, and you could get a harvest from it!
A 12 minute sales pitch, but completely missing any content. Better luck next time.
You are lucky to find straw bales. I bought some from a market at Halloween(people use them for decoration here DFW).
Just last week I was reading a book on straw bale gardening and have been considering it just for the experience of trying something different. Pleasantly surprised to see your video on this same topic. Maybe this is my sign to commit to getting some straw bales soon.
I have not found straw bale gardening to be worthwhile. After the cost of the bales (twice the price you quoted), bags of blood meal, and several plants that did not thrive – I harvested a few handfuls of cherry tomatoes that were grown from tomato suckers. It's not worth it for me – I'll be using the bales for mulch this year.
Your so awesome! So good! I’m renting and have been believing for my own land hopefully soon! Thank you so much!
How do you season the bales? Leave them outside?
Great perspective on utilizing resources. We're starting an oyster mushroom straw bale garden. Once the fungi have exhausted the bales, the remainder will be used for mulch/compost. Gotta work those materials!
Tell me more.