Introduction to Bale Gardening

* This page is actively being authored - I'll be adding more photos once the 2020 growing season is underway! *

Bale Gardening, as the name implies, is growing your fruits and vegetables in bales (hay or straw) rather than in the soil. It is advantageous for the following reasons:

• Less weeding and does not require the use of herbicides
• Raises your crops so you do not have to bend over as much when harvesting
• Useful when your soil is of low quality - as the bales decompose your plants can utilize the nutrients!
• Can save water compared to sandy soils - however they do dry out faster than heavier soils

Straw Verses Hay

First there is a difference! Straw is used for bedding and hay is used to feed livestock (horses, cows, sheep, goats, and so on), straw tends to be cheaper than hay, hay tends to have more grass/weed seeds in it, and hay tends to start with more nitrogen and other nutrients. Given the lower cost of straw and less problems with grass/weed seeds many bale gardeners will emphatically insist you use only straw bales. In reality it depends more on what you can obtain and what you pay for it. However, I would strongly suggest against using alfalfa bales as I found they took longer to cool down and my yields were lower. I have found that straw bales do require more nitrogen and I do need to add more fertilizer over hay bales and if you are able to get the bales really hot, during the conditioning process, many of the grass/weed seeds are killed.

Regardless you do want bales that were grown either organically or the minimal use of herbicides. Herbicides can persist in both the soil and plants long after harvest and as your bales decompose those herbicides can impact the growth of your vegetables! It goes without saying that many people do home gardening to reduce their exposure to herbicides.

What Can You Grow

Just about anything! There are exceptions and considerations, please read on.

Follow spacing requirements just as you would for traditional gardening. If you the instructions are to space plants a foot part then the same is true for bales. Most bales are roughly three feet long.

Corn, sun flowers (especially tall ones), and other tall growing plants are typically too top heavy for bales. There is a very high chance a strong wind would blow the plant/bale over. One could certainly anchor the bale down with fence posts along with cattle panels, similar to how I grow tomatoes, but at this point it may just be easier to grow those plants in the soil and mulch them heavily with organic material (loose hay/leaves/grass clippings). Also, root plants (potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, turnips, beets, etc.) are more difficult to grow in a bale garden,

Vine plants - tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, zucchini and so on need additional support. Most everyone use cages for tomatoes when growing in the soil and the same is true for bale gardening. However, it is also useful to pound a stake into the ground and then fasten the cage to the sake to prevent the bale/plant from being blown over. I happen to have a pile of cattle panels handy so I put panels on either side of the bales and drive metal stakes into the ground to hold them up. For peas I place two rows of bales, side by side, and then put a cattle panel between them so that the peas can then climb up the panels.

Step 1

Set the bales out, the goal is to have enough room between the rows so you can move freely when tending to your garden. Also, once you have put them in place you are going to have to get them wet so they start composting. Wet bales are heavy so plan carefully! Bales should be placed on their side with the twin facing to the outside, not on the ground, so that it does not rot. The twine will hold the bale together as it decays, if a bale falls apart its likely your plants won't produce as well. Placing bales together, end for end, also helps protect against the bales falling part in the event the twin does break. Finally, it is beneficial to place the "cut" side of the bale facing up. You can determine this by examining the bale, one side of the bale will have the grass/straw "bent over" where as the other side will appear "cut" or as if it has more "tubes" showing. This just helps the bale absorb and retrain more water, especially initially but it certainly is not the end of the world if you do not get this part right!

It is helpful to put either cardboard or several layers of newspaper under your bales to prevent weeds from growing up between them. I actually plant potatoes between each bale row as I found that potatoes grow better in loose hay/straw than they do in bales.

Either way I recommend mulching heavily between the rows. First put down a layer of news paper and/or cardboard and then organic matter on top of the cardboard. If you plan to use the same area, year after year, for a bale garden then wood chips will work well. However, if you plan to use it to grow other, "in ground" plants, within the next year or two then wood chips may become problematic as they take a longer time to decay and may tie up nitrogen. I have used a layer of corn stalks or leaves and then grass clippings and hay on top. All of this will slowly decay and be consumed by earth worms over the summer.

Conditioning the Bales

You can not simply put the bales out and then start planting! The bales need be "conditioned". First and foremost the idea of bale gardening is your plants are growing in nutrient rich compost and unless the bale has started composting the nutrients won't be available. Also as important, when the bales first start to compost they will heat up as my compost thermometer shows they often can get as high as 130-140 degrees Fahrenheit, which will kill your plants!

I use the following technique and it takes 10-14 days before the bales are ready. I strongly recommend starting at least three weeks before you plan to plant so that there is enough time for the bales to heat up and then cool back down! If you do a Google search you will quickly find that the exact techniques do vary by gardener but they all boil down to the following themes: Keep the bales wet, add a significant amount of nitrogen, and then followed by balanced amounts of potassium and phosphorus. It is also important to add other nutrients depending on the type of plants you are growing. For example tomatoes benefit from calcium.

I strongly recommend the use of a composting thermometer to gauge the temperature of the bales. If your bales are not getting into the 100-130 F range its an indication that they are not composting very quickly. It is useful to add more nitrogen. If the bales are approaching 160 F then you will want to not add additional composting as temperatures beyond that point will kill of some of of the microorganisms. What can happen in these situations is your bales heat up, microorganisms die, bales then cool off leading you to believe they are ready for planting, but then they heat back up and kill your plants!

1. Days 1-3: For the first three days just get the bales wet - either put a soaker hose on them or use a sprayer and add water until it starts seeping out the sides. It is important to do this daily as the bales stop decomposing when they dry out. When possible I put the bales out the fall before as then both rain and melting snow will cause the bales to become wet and start the process! Technically just adding water, for an extended period of time, will condition the bales. However, for those of us with shorter growing seasons there simply is not enough time and no matter what you do need to add some nutrients, to the bales, to yield a good harvest!
2. Days: 4-9: For the next six days, in addition to watering, add a high nitrogen fertilizer, if possible do this daily but if your time is limited then every other day will suffice. The risk of too much nitrogen at once is that it will leech out of the bale when you are watering. The amount of fertilizer to add is dependent on how much nitrogen is in it assuming you are using a fertilizer with a rating of at least 29 (for nitrogen) ie (N-P-K) where the N = 29 then you will use 1.5 cups over the next six days. So if you are adding it daily then 1/4 cup per day and if every other day then 1/2 cup on days one, three, and six An organic fertilizer, like blood meal, has an NPK of 13.25-1-0.6 so you would likely want to use twice as much. If the fertilizer dissolves quickly or is liquid you can just add it to the top of the bale and water it in, if it does not then it is useful to use a stick to poke holes into the bale and pour the fertilizer into those holes. I have found it is nearly always beneficial to make holes so that the fertilizer does not run off to the side when watering. Also, some organic fertilizers, like blood meal, do produce a nasty odor for a few days, it does go away!
3. Days 10-14: Add a balanced fertilizer, for example 10-10-10, plants need more than just nitrogen to survive and now is the time to add it! Apply approximately a cup per bale and it can all be added on day 10 or spread out over the three days. Some gardeners will go to every other day for watering and others will still water daily. Keep the bales moist but don't water so much that all the fertilizer is leeched out!
4. Check the temperature starting with Day 10 and monitor until it stabilizes, this typically means it falls below 80 F and does not change much from day-to-day. If you are getting some high temperatures during the day and low temperatures during the night you should expect that this will cause the temperatures for the bales to fluctuate at least a little bit. The key point here is the bales need to be warm enough to encourage seed germination but too much heat will either discourage germination and/or kill the plant!

Tending to Your Garden

I will expand on this as time goes on but going forward the rules for bale gardening are very similar to traditional gardening!