StrawBaleFinale

The results of the Great Straw Bale Experiment 2015 are in:

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a harvest!

I grew green beans, tomatoes, cukes, pumpkins---and I can say pumpkins, plural, because I got two—carrots, some onions and potatoes. The onions and potatoes I had totally forgotten I planted until just this moment so I honestly can’t say how they flourished. I shall have to dig into my bales and see.

The literature claims you don’t have to ever weed your straw bale but that was not true in my case. I don’t know if the wind blew the seeds in or if bomb dropping birds are to blame ,but I did have random weeds sprout up in my bales. Still, it wasn’t hard to pluck them. After all, you don’t have to bend over that far to get them.

When the elk ninja-ed my garden earlier in the summer, their tugging and pulling on my veggies caused some of the bales to slump over a little, but not bad enough to affect the veggies growth. (Stupid elk.)

The very best thing about my straw bale garden was having all that zucchini to menace my friends with. Did I say menace? I meant SHARE. I loved being the one to drop zucchini off on somebody’s porch...it was AWESOME!

Would I do it again? I think so! It was easy, fun and we did manage to wrangle a harvest away from the elk. Next time I want to plant more marigolds along the sides of the bales, I really liked the way it looked. And I think I might wrap a hot electric wire along the perimeter to keep the beasties at bay...