Jim, your home is beautiful and so interesting to see! All the custom work with the tile, adobe, sinks, etc. are such a treat to look at and I am sure to actually live with. Straw bale, as we are stacking it, will give us approximately R-30, which is fine for our area. Here in the mountains we rarely go below 25 above in the winter, 100 for the hottest summer days. San Diego County won't permit having our only source of heat be our wood stove so we are installing a Mini-Split but we don't expect to use it for A/C or heat very often, if at all. Our outside walls will be lime plastered and inside clay plastered. We will be making our own adobe brick for some interior work and also acid staining our floors! I wonder where you were able to get all those tires! Our 10 acre property had been owned by a "collector" who stored all things he considered useful there, which included hundreds and hundred of tires. Not enough by far for a great project such as yours but a lot for us to finally get recycled.. Our straw came from the Imperial Valley about 100 miles away, Thanks so much for sharing your project. We still have a lot to do so it is an inspiration to see the completion of such a gorgeous home.

Not sure. His plants looked pretty good on his cell phone pictures. And he runs soaker hoses on them with a timer. Seems pretty simple to me. He says as the straw decays, it feeds the plants.

I'm with Carol (OP) on this post in terms of methodology, but I have to argue for proper siting being everyone's best tool in raising figs! My Ficus carica 'Olympian' from Logee's greenhouse is producing fruit in it's first full season in the ground. It is sited with south-facing exposure about 15-20 feet from the nearest foundation wall or large structure. This part of the yard is also protected from winter wind/exposure by a fence and heavy maple cover on the east and west sides--The fig sits in a wonderfully warm, full-sun pocket year round!!! Although I'm in 6b, conditions in my yard help protect my fig from more damaging winter conditions and THIS above all is helping the fig resprout sooner and stay foliated later (and produce fruit!) Last week I began mulching the still-foliated, 6-foot-tall fig shrub with maple and elm leaf debris. Around the entire plant is a cage, about the height of the plant, which I'll fill will straw after burlapping/blanketing the trunks this autumn. Depending on the winter temps I can drape tarps and blankets above the tree's cage for extra protection.

I have done it the last 2 years. I grew potatoes in bales and tomatoes. I threatened to do squash, but it never happened. I tried cabbage last fall but that was a complete bust. My husband didn't think the potato yield was good enough, but it was the year of the monsoon spring rains and other peoples potatoes were drowning, so I thought we were lucky to get any. The reverse is true though, you have good drainage, so they dry out faster. With tomatoes it was like growing them in very deep mulch. As soon as the roots hit the soil below the straw, the tomatoes obviously did better. I was not unhappy with tomatoes grown in straw bales. It gave me room for more plants, and they are taller to work with, like you say. Last year I had 5 bales together with long sides butted against each other. Nothing grew in the center bale. My theory was it got too hot, so consider that in your plans. A row of bales end to end did not have problems like that. I think you could get away with rows 2 bales wide. In my experience, the inside of the bale does not turn into compost, at least not in time to be useful. I seasoned the bales as recommended, too. My method became cut a hole in the bale wide enough for a transplant and fill it with potting soil. The roots can grow down through the potting soil into the ground below. Tomatoes can be planted lower in a modified version of planting them deeper in dirt. Alternative method is to pry the flakes apart and put a transplant in the straw. It is too hot and dry here to put 2" of soil on top of a bale and expect things to survive in it. Not even alyssum. Unless you want to water twice a day and fertilize because you're flushing all the nutrients through. I've seen pics where everything is growing happily in the bales and flowers in the sides, etc. The only thing I can figure is it's not as hot and gets more rain. While I didn't think they broke down into compost, the bales do deteriorate over the season. If you want to hold them together better you might wrap chicken wire around them for support. I don't want to discourage you from trying this. Like I said, I got to grow a lot more tomatoes than I would have otherwise. I think we may have to learn to adapt the method to our climate. I will be interested to hear how squash and cukes do with this method. I may even try squash in a bale this year.