Straw Bale Planting
An inexpensive, easy way to set up raised beds for gardeners who have trouble bending or straightening is to set up straw bales. The bales themselves can serve as planting beds. If you set them on a concrete slab such as a patio, providing good access for a gardener in a wheelchair, you may want to put heavy plastic down before setting your bales. The bales may stain concrete. But no where else can you get a sizeable raised garden bed for $6.

After you've located the perfect spot that can be easily watered and tended, receive the right amount of sunshine, and if possible, shelter from harsh winds, have the bale set so that the cut ends are up, the long parts of stalks on the sides. If the bales are tied with synthetic twine, they should last two seasons. Be forewarned, though, mice love to move into a straw bale for winter warmth and to feed on stray grains. Using a bale for just one season then strewing straw over in-ground beds for winter protects plants and foils rodent plans. Rose Marie Nichols McGee, owner of Nichols Garden Nursery, planted straw bales with lettuces as a demonstration "Plant a Row for the Hungry" for the Garden Writers' Association of America at the Seattle Flower Show a few years ago. Her prize-winning display attracted a lot of attention. Since she was not planting members of the Solanaceae or Legume family, she had no worries about residual herbicides on the straw.

To plant a straw bale, your first step after putting it in its best location, is to thoroughly soak the bale with water. This will start a decay process, in which the bale will begin to heat up, but will cool in five to seven days. After it's cool, take a tined tool such as a dandelion digger or hand "rake" and rough up the top surface of the bale. Then top that rough area with a three-inch thick layer of compost. This compost will serve as a seed bed. It's difficult to hollow out a deeper well for planting seedlings, but it can be done. Roots will grow down into the bale. I don't think root vegetable crops such as carrots, beets or turnips would do well in this type of planting, but annuals with spreading roots will work. You can grow such things as lettuces and other greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and eggplants. I intended to grow squash in bales last summer, but did not have an adequate watering system in place, and my project fizzled.

Plants that require good drainage will love growing in straw bales. Watering should be done with slow, low force, such as drip or soaker hose. Since drainage is so fast, you will need to water fairly often. You will probably get grain seedlings volunteering, but they're easily pulled out. Other weeds should not be a problem.

The worst possible problem with straw bale planting is that the grain was sprayed with a herbicide that remains on the straw. Straw bale vendors seldom know whether the field was sprayed or not, but a quick, easy way to tell is to plant a tomato seedling in a bale. If it dies quickly, of unknown causes, you can assume there's a herbicide resident in the straw. The popular herbicides such as Clopyralid and Picloram don't kill all plants, but they do kill Solanaceae (tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, petunias, etc.), and Legumes (peas, beans, etc.). If either is present on the straw, you could plant ornamentals or food crops those herbicides don't affect, such as lettuces, chards, cress, arugula, herbs, or ornamental annuals. Petunias belong to the Solanaceae family, so those would succumb.

This is an inexpensive and fun way to grow...try it.