I have the same problem with rocky soil. All the top soil was taken away when they built the house, and we are gradually repairing it--starting with a 24x24 raised bed area on a slope.

Here's an idea that is really helping me--I saw a children's garden once that simply plopped down soil bags and leaned others on a fence. They planted tomato plants and other veggies directly into holes in the tops or sides--drainage slits in the bottom.

They were doing great.

I now follow their example, but I line the bags up on my hard, rocky soil inside the raised bed garden. I slit them for drainage, flip them over and plant into holes on the other side. I mulch with lots of straw on top so you can never see the plastic.

At the end of the season, I simply pull the plastic out and leave the soil.

Gradually we are filling in with peat and sand, as we have time to haul them.

If you want to go with more straw bales, what I would do is make pockets of good soil where you can put the seedlings until they get a good foot hold.

And let me know if bales work!

I don't have any experience with Straw Bale Gardening but if your doing this mostly to avoid digging why not do a lasagna garden. Seems to me with the lasagna style you'll have alot more organic matter for the plants to feed on, even though you did mention using compost with the straw. Oh and the lasagna style is totally free...Hopefully someone with straw gardening experience will respond, I'd be interested in the actual pros and cons. If you do it post back later and let us know how it went for you.

Last fall, we got our hands on 3 bales of moldy hay, for free. We broke them up into "books" and layered them on top of 4 of my lasagna beds. Getting my hands on enough bales to to make an entire straw bale garden would be difficult (the bales are really heavy & really large) and expensive. I agree w/ Rich. Make lasagne beds with whatever you can get your hands on for free, a bit at a time. In the long run, I think you and your soil will be better off.

mo girl,

It can definitely be done. I did it with Himalayan Balsam plants last year in bales that I had acquired the previous fall (2006) and used to support the back of a lasagna garden located on a downward slope.

The back of this lasagna garden was bordered by about 8 bales of hay/straw. The Balsams had started taking over one garden and I didn't want them there so I decided to plant them in the bales for the time being. I 'wedged' a hole with my little shovel, placed a bit of soil, and then planted.

I soon discovered that bales of hay which have been left out all winter are magnets for slugs. Call it a big communal bed for them!!!

Even though the Balsam suffered from the slugs, they still grew. And then the deers discovered them. LOL!! Am I lucky or what?! Before the deers discovered them they were about 4 feet tall and in good health.

So yes, I tried straw bale gardening, and yes, it did work - for all creatures great and small!! :O)

I've tried Strawbale Gardening, and found that my mileage did vary. In addition to the instructions you've got for heating up and aging the bales... the bales are basically big sponges, and can dry out quickly in hot dry weather: you need to stay on top of the watering. All the watering can wash the nutrients that you add right out, so fertilize weekly, and foliar feed, too. Plant into the bales while your plants are relatively small, as it's actually quite difficult to 'dig' holes in tightly-bound bales. Do work some compost into the holes, and top it with compost. Yes, they do make slug and earwig hotels, so get beer traps and Sluggo out there early. My plants, toms, squash and eggplant, didn't bear very well, I think because I didn't fertilize (Dr. Earth) enough.

My friends R & L, however, have grown a fabulous bale garden in the back yard of a rental, where the soil was baked clay. The techique DOES work, just pay attention to the fine points!

Thanks for your thoughts everyone. I've read a little about lasagna gardening, and it sounds like a really neat method. I thought maybe it was too late this year to use this method, but after a little reading, I see some people plant in a newly amended lasagna bed. They just plant in a pocket of soil to protect the roots a bit.

Tiffy, thanks for letting me know your experience. It's nice to hear the bales worked so well for you ... apart from the deer eating everything. That would be quite frustrating. Someone else on gardenweb, with the username gardenlen did kind of a combination of lasagna gardening and bales. There's a link below, for anyone interested.

I'm not really sure what I'm going to end up doing. I'm just dreaming at this point. (The ice is finally melting here today, and there are quite a few limbs down in the neighborhood. I think we're getting more winter storms this weekend.) It probably depends on price/availability of bales whether I'll give it a shot. Thanks for the great input :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Straw Bales/Lasagna Combo

Beki, I guess you posted just before I did, so I missed your entry.

It makes sense the straw would dry out pretty quickly. That will definitely be something I'll need to watch carefully should I try this method. Probably success varies in different parts of the country, depending on climate. Thanks for the practical advice. It's nice to know the positives and pitfalls of any method.

i'm trying the square foot gardening this year.
/forums.gardenweb.com/forums/sqfoot/
here's their link. cuz my soil really really sucks too and tilling it really sucks!! LOL hope that helps some!!

My finest Narcissus jonquilla were grown up through bales of straw. They were tossed to be planted and then a bale of straw was inadvertently left on top of them and the bulbs and straw were forgotten. Got some really fine flowers from the bulbs that came up through the straw.

I've read about it before. I think it's worth a try for me this year because I don't plan on many veggies and I don't want them in with my flowers. I also want to try growing tomatoes in upside down 5 gallon buckets. Or rather I think the tomatoes grow upside down or something like that.

I have heard of both square foot gardening and straw bale gardening. I'm leaning more toward sheet mulch gardening, which is essentially the same as lasagna gardening. lasagna gardening offfers the advantages of both straw bale AND square foot gardening, in that you simply layer your organic materials (a little more work than simply cutting holes in straw bales and planting in that, but less work and less traumatic impact on the existing soil biota than tilling and amending as recommended in square foot gardening. Also, like square foot gardening, you can plant quite intensively in a sheet mulch bed, nearly as intensively as in a square foot garden.

So, my 1200 square feet of planned sheet mulch beds will be the equivalent of around 2500-3000 square feet of traditional tilled beds, and, when you consider the row spacing needed in a traditional garden, add around 400 square feet more for comparison sake.

Trust me, with all the winter sowing I am doing in the next month, I will need every square inch of space!

Mark-

Could you explain more about sheet mulch gardening? I have a feeling I am going to need more garden space fast once these things start sprouting.

Proudgm: sheet mulching is the same as lasagna gardening, if you are familiar with that term. Also interbay mulch except that involves covering the hump with burlap.

There are tons of threads about this on the soil forum. You can also find a lot just by googling.

I highly recommend it- I've done it several times with wonderful results.

Karen

The straw bed gardening I did, who knows how many years ago, was for strawberries. I think this could be applied to other plants, but I never tried.
I used bales of straw as walls, inside the walls I put in peat and compost, filled the walls to the top, planted the strawberries inside the wall. The runners went into the bales, at the end of the first season I cut the bands and let the bales age naturally, making a large strawberry bed all mulched!
I keep eying the old straw bales at the neighbor horse farmer sits outside of the barn again for me this season, lol.

I grew three bale beds a few years ago. Started them out with salad greens, and when those were done I planted the bales with tomatoes and eggplant.

It all worked out okay, but the bales were in full collapse by midsummer, even though I wrapped cardboard around the outside and bound it with twine. As the hay rots, you must constantly fill the growing craters with compost and soil. Everything needed supplemental water and fertilizer.

Still, it was a fun project, and the area under the bales (rocky mountain clay) became a haven for the biggest night crawlers I've ever seen. At the end of the season, there was enough decaying hay to dig into the bale bed sites and some adjoining beds.

Here is a link that might be useful: my website

I'm in a forested area (but fire clearing around house has created a sunny area) and had been afraid to try straw bale as I'd heard mice and other small rodents might nest there. Thusfar those of you who have tried it haven't mentioned this - not a big problem?

Great to hear from more of you with experience. One positive is I can definitely use leftover straw for mulch or compost, even if the garden doesn't grow or hold up as planned.

I haven't grown strawberries yet, but I'm encouraged to hear you were able to grow them in straw.

Daffodils and tulips would be really pretty grow out of a bale as well.

Do you lay the bales flat or on their sides to plant in?