Strawbale gardens

[seedcorn]

In Midwest, herbicides are used on wheat in spring long before harvest. In alfalfa, may be sprayed several times depending upon weed pressure. You do have to be aware of RR alfalfa. Easy way to know if it isn’t. Make sure it has some grass in the bale-100% it is not RR alfalfa.

No herbicides are used with a half life of more than 6-8 weeks.

To get weed free alfalfa, buy alfalfa bales from someone growing for dairies. They are usually on a 28 day cut cycle so weeds don’t have a chance to go to seed.

 

[thistlebloom]

Seed, what's RR alfalfa?

 

[seedcorn]

Sorry, round-up ready alfalfa. Allowing you to spray hay fields killing the grasses.

 

[thistlebloom]

Thanks. I bought beautiful hay this year from a grower up north. I'll want to find out what he's planting before I commit next year.

 

[spookybird]

Where in NW Ark. do you live? I live in NE Ok. and was wondering where you buy your straw bales??

I was given 4 bales from a neighbor that used it to decorate for Halloween but I'd like some more.
Here in our small town not much access to it.

Won't be long to start conditioning them!!

thanks.

 

[canesisters]

First 10 down.
View attachment 11949

I laid a big tarp down, lined up the bales on it, then covered it in some of the sawdust I've got laying around in bags. The outside sawdust is darker because it's wet.
Now just need the t-posts and wire trellis'.

View attachment 11950

2018 update
Let me go on record here and now and say that the tarp was the WORST IDEA EVER!!!!!!
I have spent a good chunk of the last week trying to get it out of the way of this year's garden.
The sawdust over top of it composted BEAUTIFULLY into about 4 inches of beautiful, dark, lovely soil... the proof of it's goodness is the DENSE weeds growing on it. I can't use the compost which is essentially weed sod now. I can't move the thing because it weighs roughly 50,000,000 lbs!!! I've had to resort to rolling it up (AFTER digging and digging and digging to FIND THE EDGES) and cutting it into strips about a foot wide in order to be able to lift and drag them.
DO NOT - I REPEAT - DO NOT put a tarp on the ground ANYWHERE and leave it if you have ANY interest in gardening. You WILL eventually want to use that spot and you will curse the day you ever picked up the shiny new tarp package at the store.

Just look at those sharp edges!!! You'd think that I'd used a sod cutter!
See that roll on the left? That's compost-weed-sod.....

 

[ducks4you]

ok i won't do that...

 

[flowerbug]

...
Just look at those sharp edges!!! You'd think that I'd used a sod cutter!
See that roll on the left? That's compost-weed-sod.....

prime worm/garden food in a few years. dig a deep enough hole and
put it down there and cover it up. put a few layers of cardboard/and/or/
newspapers over it and let it rot for a few years. not much comes up
using this method, i do it all the time for weedy areas instead of dealing
with trying to hot compost it or throwing it away. eventually it's such
nice material like leaf mold or peat moss.

i have some grassy areas that eventually i will turn into gardens and
that is how i deal with the turf/sod layers and any weeds in there. great
garden soil eventually. after a few years. if it is something like mints
or really invasive stuff i will turn it upside down and leave it to bake
through the summer on the surface and if any of it starts to regrow i
just shift it again so the roots can't get going. or, of course, bury it
with extra layers of cardboard/mulch over them, by the time the card-
board is done and the mulch is getting somewhat rotted then the
area is good for strawberries...

 

[canesisters]

I WISH!!!
It is COMPELTELY matted into and through the brittle tarp fabric. I tried to scrape it off to pile up as the start of Mt. Rotmore III .. but I was getting TONS of 'strings' and scraps of the tarp fabric. The weeds weren't the problem, the tarp was. There was just no way to separate it without sitting down and picking it apart bit by bit...

 

[flowerbug]

I WISH!!!
It is COMPELTELY matted into and through the brittle tarp fabric. I tried to scrape it off to pile up as the start of Mt. Rotmore III .. but I was getting TONS of 'strings' and scraps of the tarp fabric. The weeds weren't the problem, the tarp was. There was just no way to separate it without sitting down and picking it apart bit by bit...

oh dear! i wonder if you can put it over a wire and let the wind and rain clean it off for you then? or way too heavy for that?

can you lay it out on a slope some place and just flip it over from time to time? just kicking ideas around here...