Questions and Answers

With all the knowledge today about gardening it should be simple. We do not have the time to work and produce an unproductive garden. I'm going to answer questions to help those people who had no success in straw bale gardening. Maybe I can get them to try my system of gardening.

Question: The bales,(being skeptical, I started with 2) started falling apart almost immediately.

Ans. A well made bale should stay together. When you cook your bale, it turns to mush. I don't cook bales or leave them on top of the soil. I put them in a trench. In a trench the bales cannot fall apart, even though in my type of gardening, they never do anyway.

Question:In straw bale gardening only three plants showed any growth- 1 hybrid tomato grew to about 8 inches, got stressed and made 1 tiny tomato.

Ans. The fallacy that many gardeners believe is that the plant will grow into the bale. It does not. It only grows as large as the hole you make that is filled with soil.

Question: What is the purpose of the bale? When the bale is placed within a trench, it wicks up water. Although plants hate too much moisture, the bale will normalize its moisture so that the plant is not drenched or dry. However the bales above ground has a tenancy to dry out. Unless it is well conditioned and kept wet, it will suck up the moisture from the planting medium. I did some test with a moisture probe on my Bales in which I talk about in my, "Hay Bale Garden Habitat book."


Here is a picture of my garden. It has no fertilizer other than rabbit manure, soil, bio-char, and peat moss.