Terrible garden soil? Or even no soil? No problem. Yes, you can garden! Straw bale gardening uses a bale as the medium in which you plant. You won't have to dig in rocky or hard soil, and it ...

Using T-posts and wire to support climbing plants such as tomatoes or cucumbers makes a straw bale garden more productive, says Joel Karsten, author of Straw Bale Gardens Complete. ( Jen Daugherty ...

After the 12th day, touch the bale to check for heat. If it is cool to touch, you can plant. To plant, dig small pockets or holes into the straw and set plants into the holes.

It almost seems like magic. Lay down a hunk of straw, water it for a week or two, sprinkle in some fertilizer, and watch your plants grow. In many cases, you don’t need any soil, and the bale ...

A: Growing in straw bales – especially veggies – has become a hot item all of a sudden. That New York Times article no doubt fanned the flames, but there's a lot of social-media chatter about ...

Straw bales, available from feed and farm supply stores, vary in size but usually range from 40 to 48 inches long and 12 to 14 inches on a side. A common size is 40-by-18-by-18.

Straw is for gardening, and most of its seeds have been harvested, so there shouldn’t be many (or any) remaining in the bale to sprout into weeds. Straw is also less likely than hay to have been ...

Straw-bale building has grown rapidly over the last decade. The last year in which new buildings could be counted was 1995, when there were 1,000.

This year's growing season is not exactly off to an early start. But a local gardener has a suggestion: Plant your vegetables in a bale of straw instead of in the ground. It's a humble method with ...

The straw bales went into place quickly, thanks largely to the help of participants in a straw-bale construction workshop last weekend that was sponsored by the Cleveland Green Building Coalition.

Techniques of the Trade: Straw bale gardens let you grow anywhere — without soil Bales capture and hold moisture so they use no more water than a typical vegetable garden ...

“Straw-bale or alternative building is an absolutely fantastic experience,” said David Chew. “But it’s not — I would not recommend this to anybody who wasn’t already interested. ...