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[ninnymary]

Bee, I've never seen a rolled hay bale in real life. I've only seen the rectangle bales that we have here. I love seeing those.

Thanks for posting the Ruth Stout video. I've heard about her but didn't know much about her style of gardening. She says hay fertlizes the soil. In your opinion, does it fertlize it better than wood chips. I know the problems we are having with them.

Are you converting your garden from the BTE to the Ruth Stout method? Or are you planning to use wood chips just in your orchard and hay in the rest of your garden? Does hay break down faster than wood chips?

Would rice straw give you the same benefits as hay?

I'm always following your steps and have so much admiration for your gardening. Let me know which method works better and why you prefer one over the other. I like the wood chips and can find them free. I just don't like the fact that they take long to break down and they take nitrogen away from the plants. Otherwise I don't have a problem with them harboring pests or such.

Mary

 

[baymule]

I like the wood chips and can find them free. I just don't like the fact that they take long to break down and they take nitrogen away from the plants.

Mary

Mary, scoop up fresh chicken poop and put in a bucket. Fill half with water. Stir it several times a day for 3 days. Dilute with 2 cups manure tea to 1 gallon water and water the garden. This will put nitrogen in your garden.

 

[Beekissed]

Bee, I've never seen a rolled hay bale in real life. I've only seen the rectangle bales that we have here. I love seeing those.

Thanks for posting the Ruth Stout video. I've heard about her but didn't know much about her style of gardening. She says hay fertlizes the soil. In your opinion, does it fertlize it better than wood chips. I know the problems we are having with them.

Are you converting your garden from the BTE to the Ruth Stout method? Or are you planning to use wood chips just in your orchard and hay in the rest of your garden? Does hay break down faster than wood chips?

Would rice straw give you the same benefits as hay?

I'm always following your steps and have so much admiration for your gardening. Let me know which method works better and why you prefer one over the other. I like the wood chips and can find them free. I just don't like the fact that they take long to break down and they take nitrogen away from the plants. Otherwise I don't have a problem with them harboring pests or such.

Mary

Miss Mary, those bales are old and rotten. The actual rolled bales that are fresh and new are much more impressive!

And the round bales in plastic sleeves that look like giant marsh mallows....

Hay has the benefit of having greens and browns in the same package, unlike much of the wood chips, unless you can get ramial and even then there's generally not as much green as the brown. The hay will break down much quicker than the wood chips due to the small particle size of the material and that good ratio of woody stems and grassy tips of the hay...particularly if it's a second cut hay, which is rare to find as mulch hay unless it got rained on.

Yes, I'm switching over due to sheer lack of availability of the chips, the difficulty in loading, unloading and spreading them, and the need to apply them so often that they are always in some state of leaching the nitrogen. Not to mention I've had HUGE pest loads since using the chips....not sure if that will be the same with the hay, but I've used hay for mulching around the plants for years and never had this kind of a pest load.

Some are big on straw while others lean more towards hay...straw is definitely woodier and has no greens to speak of at all, so it would likely break down slower. Plus, you have to worry more about herbicide use in the straw based crops than you do in hay...lot of folks have killed their gardens for years to come from the use of herbicide laced straw bedding that had been mixed in with horse manure or using straw bought at garden centers from unknown sources. Others have done the same with mulch hay, so it's just something to watch for in your area....in this area it's a moot point. No one cares about weeds in their hay here as they usually just feed it to cattle and they will pretty much eat anything.

Hay is pretty much like grass clippings in a way...they produce the most rich, loamy black soil in a very short amount of time. I was just digging through a grass clipping pile in my son's tiny garden this evening and marveling over the most perfect handful of soil I've ever seen, just 2 in. into the pile.

The other day I found 2 in. of incredibly black soil under some stored, tarped haybales also and they were up on plywood and stones to keep them off the ground. Didn't matter...moisture got into the stack and settled to the bottom where it contacted the wood. I had to scrape that luscious black loam off the plywood with a hammer, it was that thick, moist and rich. That was just from spring to fall and wasn't even in contact with the ground or exposed to the elements.

This lady did a little impromptu comparison of earth worm counts in the wood chips vs. hay coverings in her garden and it was interesting. I've found pretty much the same thing when I leave a hay bale sitting around...turn it up and you'll find a lot of earthworms under it just eating away. Not as easy for them to eat the wood chips.

Mary, that's a kind thing you say about my gardening, though I can't imagine why...I'm none too good at it lately! These past 3 yrs with the wood chips have been the worst gardening years ever, but I'm not sure if it was due to the chips or just coincidence, as many others have experienced the same things I have and they aren't using the chips.

 

[flowerbug]

@ninnymary are you mixing the wood chips in the garden soil?

i don't have nitrogen leaching issues here, but i don't mix them in the garden soil until they are well decayed (about 1/2 - 3/4 dark humus). if they are fresh and i'm using them as a top mulch i usually have a few layers of cardboard under them (because i'm smothering something ).

they weigh less than crushed limestone. i know which i'd rather move...

no pest problem differences that i've noticed.

 

[Ridgerunner]

That's the problem isn't it Bee. Often you don't know if it's something you did or if it was just one of those years. Cause and effect or just coincidence. This was one of the best seasons in a long time for corn and tomatoes but I can't say that for other things. It was cooler so the ground did not dry out as quickly plus I got a few nicely timed rains. Who knows what next year will be.

I mainly use wheat straw as mulch. Part of that is availability but it is expensive, about $7 for a square bale. But I've chatted with the lady that owns it about those herbicides and she assures me I'll be OK. That's worth a little extra money in my book. You seem to trust your farmers.

I use wood chips in landscaping areas the first year I get them. They come from a nearby city that chips the limbs people bring to the landfill plus whatever their maintenance crews cut. Those are the ones I worry about herbicides. Who knows what has been sprayed on them, either in back yards, roadsides, or in fence rows. I have gotten wood chips from utilities clearing trees in this area but I've seen farmers spraying their fence rows and utilities spraying under their lines. I don't totally trust those either. I figure the dosage or concentration of that stuff is probably not going to hurt the landscaping but I won't use it on anything I'm going to eat the first year. I trust one source but not the other.

I have to take it up after a year though because the "trash" wood in it breaks down into a beautiful compost and grass and other stuff like Bermuda grass will grow in it. Some wood chips have not broken down totally though. I figure by now any residual herbicides have broken down or at least been leached away so I use that compost in the garden. Any wood chips get used in the garden as mulch. Whether it is wheat straw or year-old wood chips they go over several layers of newspaper around the plants and sometimes over cardboard in walkways. I think that newspaper keeps them from using too much nitrogen in the soil and by the next season either of them are pretty much gone. Sometimes if I add it late in the season some straw is left so I rake it to the side and use it as mulch for the early spring cool weather stuff I plant, like broccoli, cabbage, or cauliflower.

That reminds me of another strange thing, talking about doing better some years than others. My cauliflower was great this year, I've got a lot in the freezer. The broccoli not so much. You'd think the two are similar enough they'd both do well or not but it doesn't seem to work that way. Sometimes broccoli does a lot better. Occasionally they both do really well. It's probably weather related, something causes one to not head up while the other does great. Usually half of what broccoli I freeze comes from the side shoots after the main head is harvested but his year I barely got enough of those to keep us in fresh broccoli for the table. I made a mistake when I got the starts, I thought I was getting two four-packs of each but I got six-packs. I can't even count past four. So a lot of cauliflower in the freezer and that broccoli really did poorly.

 

[ninnymary]

Mary, scoop up fresh chicken poop and put in a bucket. Fill half with water. Stir it several times a day for 3 days. Dilute with 2 cups manure tea to 1 gallon water and water the garden. This will put nitrogen in your garden.

Oh Bay, that seems like a lot of work.

Mary

 

[ninnymary]

@ninnymary are you mixing the wood chips in the garden soil?

i don't have nitrogen leaching issues here, but i don't mix them in the garden soil until they are well decayed (about 1/2 - 3/4 dark humus). if they are fresh and i'm using them as a top mulch i usually have a few layers of cardboard under them (because i'm smothering something ).

they weigh less than crushed limestone. i know which i'd rather move...

no pest problem differences that i've noticed.

No, not mixing in soil. First year, I put down leaves, horse manure, and topped with wood chips. Second time, I just used horse manure and topped with chips. The problem of the nitrogen leaking isn't all that bad. Just a plant here or there.

Mary

 

[ninnymary]

Bee, 3 years of having a poor garden, will never erase all the gardening wisdom you have.

That video was an eye opener. I'm always open to trying new things. Perhaps wood chips aren't for every garden even though they make sense. You and Paul live a country apart so what works for him may not work for you due to many variables.

I've always used rice straw because it was softer than hay for my nest boxes. I think I will try it for my veggie beds whenever my wood chips break down and it's time to mulch again. I will certainly ask questions to see where it comes from and if it's sprayed. Is there such a thing as organic straw? I guess it would be pretty hard to control other farmers spraying from next door for such a thing.

I'm surprised that hay and straw prices seem to be the same as yours and other people. I would only need 1 bale so for me it's inexpensive.

Mary

 

[bobm]

Mary, try to use grass hay , wheat,or barley straw instead of rice straw as their stems have a high concentration of cilica and takes a very long time to decompose. That is one reason that people prefer to use rice straw to mix with clay to make adobe bricks.

 

[ninnymary]

Mary, try to use grass hay , wheat,or barley straw instead of rice straw as their stems have a high concentration of cilica and takes a very long time to decompose. That is one reason that people prefer to use rice straw to mix with clay to make adobe bricks.

Thanks @bobm . Of the ones you recommend, which would have the less weeds and sprays?

Mary