Straw Flowers

Last year I drank the Kool-Aid and climbed aboard the Straw Bale Express. Straw Bale gardening suddenly seemed like something I couldn’t wait to try.

Of course--as is my norm--I DID wait to try it, and didn’t purchase my straw bales until Memorial Day Weekend last year. One of the perks of straw bale gardening is that you can plant your “garden” earlier in the season. Because the straw bales are decomposing they provide their own heat, and you can plant in a warm bale much earlier than you can plant in the cold ground.

Happy Sunflowers

That is, if you remember to buy your bales a head of time and condition them. Conditioning takes about two weeks to complete and then you’re free to plant. But, true to form I didn’t get around to starting back in April. Once more it’s Memorial Weekend and I find myself on the way to Overby’s to buy my bales. Lucky for me he had three bales left---it seems straw bale gardening is catching on. Who knew?

Because there is going to be a wedding in my back yard I won’t be planting my straw bale vegetable garden. Instead, I’m experimenting a little and using the bales to grow flowers. And not just any flowers---giant Sunflowers. Statement Sunflowers, if you will.

Or if the ELK will. Leave them alone that is. The bales will be outside of my new fence—technically the fence is so new it’s not even constructed yet but I have faith—and that will make them subject to the appetite of ravenous elk. I plan to douse the bales and flowers at regular intervals with the Stinky Spay and set up a perimeter of Scarecrow sprinklers and hope for the best. Cross your fingers!