I’m about to plant my garden…and I think I’m going to try a new method: gardening in straw. What you do is this: place bales of hay in your garden. Scoop out 2-3 cavities per bale (about the size and depth of a gallon jug, and fil the cavities with potting soil. Into this you plant your seeds. Almost no weeding, and every week you soak the bales with water/liquid fertilizer. Proponents claim excellent yilds and early bearing.
Has anyone tried this method? I’d like your comments.
Sounds neat. I’ll wait to hear how it goes for you.
Ditto!
Can you direct us to any links and such about this? Sounds wicked interesting.
What about snakes?
Bugs, and other things that like dark wet places?
About ten years ago I found a book in the library called ‘How to have a garden without breaking your back’ or something like that, wherein the author told about getting older and needing to find a less physical way of gardening. She used hay, or straw as a thick mulch, and never picked up a hoe again. I liked the book, liked the idea, and I did use the method for a few years. It works. Be careful though, to make sure you get good clean hay, without weed seeds. I did it in a garden one year, and then didn’t plant a garden the next year, and the weeds really took over. Bindweed was rampant, and I think it could only have come from the hay that I used.
The method does work though, but it takes a while to get used to looking at your garden. It looks strange with all that hay on it.
This sounds similar to the method thats currently being called “Lasagna Gardening”. It used to be called No-till Gardening, but the woman who is writing books on it now is perhaps not aware that she only re-discovered the idea.