Straw bale garden

[SprigOfTheLivingDead]

I havea hard time putting up photos. but the barrel is next to the straw bale, 4 plants planted from the same container. 2 in the pot and 2 in the bale. the plants in the pot seem to never have enough water, and they both get watered 2 gallons every week. the bale plants the leaves are twice the size of the potted plants and growing very vigorously i haven't tried to harvest any yet so I still am waiting for the plants to die. hopefully I will get a photo up from them.

I'd be interested in your thoughts and pics to help guide discussion. With trees nutrients from soil have a limited impact, CO2 is the driver, but vegetable and fruit producing plants are another matter. So if you're getting more production from straw I'm wondering what the real trigger is (many fertilizers actually trick plants into thinking "oh, hey! I should grow more" or "oh, hey! it's time to bloom", so it could be the natural chems inside the stray are telling plants something).

My basic thinking leads me down this path: Oxygen would actually decrease root growth (air pruning), and straw, though producing great (!!!) humidity (great for roots) has more locked nutrients than anything else, pushing the CO2 argument more than anything else.