Strawbale gardens

[Ridgerunner]

Hay will have a lot of seeds in it Bee. There are trade-offs for everything. But you've used hay before so you should know what you are getting into.

Where would you get straw? I get mine from a Mom 'n Pop gardening center. It's pretty expensive from there but I've discussed this with Carla. She already knew about it and was assured by her supplier it's safe. If you know about something beforehand you can take precautions.

 

[flowerbug]

Just REMEMBER, if it's a weed and you Leave the Roots, the weed will grow back. What I did was to shake and work off most of the soil and then throw the weeds into a pile to bag up and burn.

it really depends upon the weed in question. there's very little that survives being smothered for a year or two, but you have to make sure you get all of it covered. for veggie gardens we keep them pretty well weeded now that most surrounding areas are either taken up by paths or decorated mulched areas.

we do have weed piles that some roots get thrown on to dry out and let the soil off the roots come off. nothing really regrows there because it is shaded enough and the pile is big enough that any rains wash through so it is kept dry enough.

i wouldn't burn anything again if i can help it (i react badly to smoke). but a while back i was reading up on biochar and wished i could get into making some of that once in a while since it is a longer lasting version of carbon with a lot of surface area for bacteria/fungi. unfortunately with the smoke issue i decided to return to no-till/low-till.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have a burn barrel I use for certain things, noxious weeds especially. When I dig nut sedge or Johnson grass tubers out of the garden they go in the burn barrel to dry out and eventually burn. If I cut a flower off of Canada thistle it goes in the burn barrel, those can continue to mature all the way to viable seeds. It's a way to get rid of stuff I don't want in the compost. I tend to burn paper with private information on it instead of shredding it, yeah, I know shredded paper can go in the compost but sometimes I'm lazy.

I don't burn much wood in the burn barrel, mainly just scrap from the workshop with nails and screws removed. That's mainly to keep the fire going hot enough to take care of that other stuff. I don't burn much cardboard, that's taken to a recycling place unless it is too dirty to recycle.

 

[digitS']

It was contaminated compost at WSU, @Ridgerunner . LINK And yes, it was Picloram and Clopyralid - more persistent herbicides than some.

The herbicide contamination wasn't confined to Washington State. Other stories have appeared over the years about manure from livestock grazed near roadways sprayed with herbicides. I believe that was glyphosate. It persists long enough to pass through the gut of a cow, apparently.

Mold would be my greatest concern with any mulch. I once had a very bad respiratory infection after moving a couple of truck loads of moldy wood chips. Powdery mildew shows up every year in my garden and I don't think I can blame that on molds on dead material but there has been a few problems with downy mildew and several other fungus diseases.

I don't garden where there is much humidity. Maybe the normal arid atmosphere just stresses plants and makes them vulnerable now and then, anyway.

Steve

 

[Beekissed]

Fungus is a fact here, so no escaping it even if one tills and aerates the soils frequently. I live in what's commonly called the Mid-Ohio Valley...mold is our milieu, you might say.

I don't mind mulching with hay and the proposed weeds...you can just plop some hay down on them when they appear. Keeping the hay deep enough is the key and few weeds arrive.

That's the problem I had with the wood chips this year...I hadn't sourced enough to cover the composted chips so that weeds couldn't pop up and I STILL can't source any as I'm going into the winter, which spells disaster for spring.

Straw is horribly expensive here, so no one uses straw if they can help it...$7-$10 a bale.

 

[ninnymary]

Ridge, I use rice straw on my nest box and used to use it as mulch. Do you know if they spray that? With our drought we don't have wet or humid weather so I would think that it's not being sprayed but who knows.

Mary

 

[Ridgerunner]

Ridge, I use rice straw on my nest box and used to use it as mulch. Do you know if they spray that? With our drought we don't have wet or humid weather so I would think that it's not being sprayed but who knows.

Mary

Mary, I have no idea with rice straw. The vast majority of wheat straw in the US isn't a problem either, the problem is knowing if it is or not.

 

[ducks4you]

If I had to buy straw now it would $6-7/bale. I buy it from my hay man with my first load of hay, and he has been selling it for $3.00/bale.
I really HATE, HATE, HATE to see clean straw used for anything but animal bedding bc it is just the warmest thing your horse/dog/cow/other can lay on when it is bitter cold bc it radiates their own heat back on them.
Also, as you know, I have discovered that it is excellent to use to decompose next to horse manure!
I sweep up what has shed when I drop bales to the barn floor and put it on top of where my horses like to poo, too.
Straw baled for animals by people who bale animal fodder isn't likely to be sprayed by anything.
I can suggest that the best time to get straw is from grocery stores that sell it before Halloween. For gardening it won't matter much if that has been rained on. For animals, rained on straw will mold and can create heaves.

 

[ducks4you]

If I had to buy straw now it would $6-7/bale. I buy it from my hay man with my first load of hay, and he has been selling it for $3.00/bale.
I really HATE, HATE, HATE to see clean straw used for anything but animal bedding bc it is just the warmest thing your horse/dog/cow/other can lay on when it is bitter cold bc it radiates their own heat back on them.
Also, as you know, I have discovered that it is excellent to use to decompose next to horse manure!
I sweep up what has shed when I drop bales to the barn floor and put it on top of where my horses like to poo, too.
Straw baled for animals by people who bale animal fodder isn't likely to be sprayed by anything.
I can suggest that the best time to get straw is from grocery stores that sell it before Halloween. For gardening it won't matter much if that has been rained on. For animals, rained on straw will mold and can create heaves.

 

[ducks4you]

If I had to buy straw now it would $6-7/bale. I buy it from my hay man with my first load of hay, and he has been selling it for $3.00/bale.
I really HATE, HATE, HATE to see clean straw used for anything but animal bedding bc it is just the warmest thing your horse/dog/cow/other can lay on when it is bitter cold bc it radiates their own heat back on them.
Also, as you know, I have discovered that it is excellent to use to decompose next to horse manure!
I sweep up what has shed when I drop bales to the barn floor and put it on top of where my horses like to poo, too.
Straw baled for animals by people who bale animal fodder isn't likely to be sprayed by anything.
I can suggest that the best time to get straw is from grocery stores that sell it before Halloween. For gardening it won't matter much if that has been rained on. For animals, rained on straw will mold and can create heaves.