Oops! In an earlier post about straw bale gardening I complained about having to water the bales every single day. For those of you who are thinking about trying this method, it occurred to me that I should point out that author Joel Karsten of the book Straw Bale Gardens Complete, recommends using drip hoses for daily irrigation. Here on The Little Half Acre I am on a very limited budget and I decided that I would just water by hand. Bad decision. Very bad decision.
Overall, I’ve been really pleased with the results from my straw bale gardens. The tomato, pepper, squash, zucchini, basil and eggplant have all been producing well and and there’s an added benefit. I’m going to get double the return from the expense of buying the bales because I will use the decomposing bales as the basis for soil in the terraced beds that we’ll create this fall. When I pull the bales apart now and look down inside them, I see lots of rich, black compost. That’s a fabulous bonus!
Didn’t want to mislead anyone —
