The Great Straw Bale Experiment

[bughunter99]

Originally Posted by cslinde

Wow! Not being snotty just sharing my experience. I am not sure I am the snotty one, just saying. I wasnt't directing my post to anyone but was excited to share my success story. I was only making mention to the post of the old bales thinking for me that would have been an assett in my garden. I have terrible soil which is why I needed to spend time to make sure my process was correct. My post was for the person who is looking into doing this for themselves and information I wish i would have found early on. Some of the info i have was found after i started the process. I have never gardened before and thought this was an open forum to discuss and share our trials and successes. i was very excited to be a part of this forum, thanks for tainting my experience. Please dont assume someones intent or mis-intent and i am sorry that i hit a nerve.

You said" You can have success but it’s so much more than just putting a plant in a bale. Do your research." In a thread I started about my experiment.
Sorry. I read it as a snotty comment directed at me, about my experience, where plenty of research was done.

[RootLoops]

wow so much animosity in this thread! i don't know why you didn't have success but don't discount it outright, last season i grew 90 tomato plants all in hay bales, not straw but cheap $2 hay and it worked great, i fed them only some tomato tone at the beginning and then just watered them with compost tea once a week. some of my plants were over 8 ft tall and i had to rig up a much taller trellis to accommodate them. i grew several different herbs, peppers, squash, cucumbers, etc. all in bales.

the bales were watered with MycoGrow at the beginning and covered with black plastic and set on a water timer five to fifteen mins per day. after a month i took the plastic off and planted every hole. the growth was slow until the roots got into the bale well and then growth took off. i never used the first inorganic material and we picked several hundred pounds off those plants, so many that i had to compost a lot of them cause we just couldn't get rid of them all. after growing in bales last year and then growing in dirt this year i will be going back to bales for the fall crop, IMO the soil is for the birds as long as bales are available.

also when i went to till up the yard this year the dirt under where the bales had been was very dark and had a great texture whereas the surrounding dirt was light brown and sandy/clay

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by RootLoops

also when i went to till up the yard this year the dirt under where the bales had been was very dark and had a great texture whereas the surrounding dirt was light brown and sandy/clay

Which just goes to show you a much better use of straw or hay...Mulch.

[RootLoops]

Originally Posted by Redbaron

Which just goes to show you a much better use of straw or hay...Mulch.

i don't know man growing huge tomato plants is a pretty good use of hay IMO, and then it can still be used as compost or mulch, i'm really not sure why this thread has such an air of hostility underneath it's surface. it's a great way to grow plants that has worked for me every time i've used it, and it works for a lot of other people as well

[bughunter99]

Originally Posted by RootLoops

wow so much animosity in this thread! i don't know why you didn't have success but don't discount it outright, last season i grew 90 tomato plants all in hay bales, not straw but cheap $2 hay and it worked great, i fed them only some tomato tone at the beginning and then just watered them with compost tea once a week. some of my plants were over 8 ft tall and i had to rig up a much taller trellis to accommodate them. i grew several different herbs, peppers, squash, cucumbers, etc. all in bales.

the bales were watered with MycoGrow at the beginning and covered with black plastic and set on a water timer five to fifteen mins per day. after a month i took the plastic off and planted every hole. the growth was slow until the roots got into the bale well and then growth took off. i never used the first inorganic material and we picked several hundred pounds off those plants, so many that i had to compost a lot of them cause we just couldn't get rid of them all. after growing in bales last year and then growing in dirt this year i will be going back to bales for the fall crop, IMO the soil is for the birds as long as bales are available.

also when i went to till up the yard this year the dirt under where the bales had been was very dark and had a great texture whereas the surrounding dirt was light brown and sandy/clay

5-15 minutes of watering per day for an entire month before the plants are even in disqualifies this method from the environmentally conscious gardening I try to do.

Well that and being attacked by the swarm of hornets that moved into one of the bales!

Stacy

[RootLoops]

to each his/her own! i'm sorry you didn't have better success with it

[paulgrow]

For the past 3 years my tomatoes in straw bales preformed much better that the ones direct planted into the soil. When I pull the vines in the fall the ones in the bales have a much larger root structure than the ones in the soil.

I treat my bales with urea 3 weeks before I plant into them.

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by RootLoops

i don't know man growing huge tomato plants is a pretty good use of hay IMO, and then it can still be used as compost or mulch, i'm really not sure why this thread has such an air of hostility underneath it's surface. it's a great way to grow plants that has worked for me every time i've used it, and it works for a lot of other people as well

I am not hostile at all. I am simply pointing out that the effect you saw happening under the bale...the nice crumbly soil...is the same effect I use to my advantage when I heavily mulch. And except for VERY minimal ferts in the actual transplant hole at plant out, I make no soil amendments at all. Very minimal watering either. And I posted pics last year (or year before, I forget) from an 18 foot tomato vine. So yeah, straw bales can work. But if you know what you are doing, that same bale can be used to improve the soil on 10 times the area, making 10 times the giant tomato vines, with less than 10% in inputs of ferts etc. For me, with lots of room, it makes sense to use that straw or hay differently. For you? Maybe a straw bale is better. Either way I am not hostile to the idea. Different techniques for different situations. We can all get along just fine. Share the love of growing man!

[RootLoops]

no you misunderstood, i didn't mean to say your reply had the hostility it was the thread in general, sorry i can see how the wording looks now but that wasn't directed at you. i figure this because the original post starts off negative and then got into somewhat of an argument later on. i apologize for the way i worded that if it came off snappy

just so you know in a larger growing operation we are planning we will be using no till and cover crops extensively, as it is with the hay bales the tilling and weeding i aim to avoid

[epsilon]

A question,

What is done with the bales in the following year? Are they used until they completely break down? or do you dump them into the compost heap?

[RootLoops]

you could do either based on the bales condition, if it's too decomposed i'd probably compost it but something should grow pretty well in the completely done pile