Bales of FunFor vegetable gardeners, straw bale gardening may be the best innovation since sliced bread.
Straw bale gardening essentially turns a bale of straw into a raised bed. It requires no digging or soil preparation. Because you’re not planting in the ground, you don’t have to worry about soil-borne diseases, and weeding is minimal. It doesn’t even matter if your soil is crummy or if the sunniest place in your yard is covered in concrete. You can achieve optimal growing conditions for a vegetable garden in a humble bale of straw.
categories
popular
Columns
Dear Diary, I’m soooo excited that I can hardly breathe!! Spring is almost here!! I can feel it in my very, very cold toes ...
Columns
Here we are again, folks, recovering from yet another catastrophic (pick one or more): Election. New Year’s Eve celebration …
Departments
Gardening may be good for the soul, but this summer it was good for larceny. That’s right. Plants were stolen from my garden ...
Columns
It might have been yesterday when, huddled under a fluorescent kitchen light with a cup of instant decaf, staring vacantly ...
Blog
Back in January 1906, the Gardener’s Monthly Magazine featured these women perusing seed catalogs and magazines.
questions
What is the best time to plant a tree in northern Illinois?
I plan on saving my amaryllis bulbs that I kept outside over summer, but I noticed red streaks on the inner side of the leaves. What caused that? Will I be able to save my bulbs?
What does it take to make a climbing hydrangea flower? Ours was planted 3 years ago and is growing energetically. It’s in a protected nook near the patio and gets very little direct sunlight, but doesn’t act sun starved. We gave it a shot of slow release fertilizer on planting, and once since. Somewhat inadvertently it gets plenty of water, since the hose spigot is nearby and leaks, but drainage does not seem to be the problem. It now fully occupies an 8-foot trellis but shows no interest in flowering. Is it youth, lack of sun, too much or too little fertilizer, bugs, lack of pruning or what? When do these plants bloom and what conditions do they like?
