Water the straw bales deeply every day during the conditioning process, and apply another ½ cup of high-nitrogen fertilizer on each bale on days 3 and 5. On days 7 and 9, apply ¼ cup of high-nitrogen ...

Local gardeners are experimenting with straw bales, taking advantage of the internal composting to help their garden grow. As a little boy growing up on a Minnesota farm, Joel Karsten wondered why the ...

Starting a vegetable garden can be a rewarding prospect for any homeowner. In addition to having fresh veggies on the ready, digging in the dirt has big health benefits. Though yanking out weeds might ...

Bad soil? Not enough soil? Maybe even no soil? Skip the ground and try planting fruits and vegetables in straw bales instead, suggests Joel Karsten, author of “Straw Bale Gardens” (Cool Springs Press, ...

For about $5 to $10 you can pick up a bale of straw at your local hardware store or nursery. That means you can have a lot of fun without threshing your wallet. Once your bale has served its purpose, ...

AKRON, Ohio — When Joel Karsten was growing up on a farm in Minnesota, he noticed how lushly weeds grew from rotting bales of straw. That made him wonder: If straw worked so well for growing weeds, ...

Like many others in the Coulee Region, Chris Christen and her staff at Christen Farm Nursery are anxious to get into the garden. And when they do, many of them will be trying straw bale gardening.

Straw bale gardening? What will they think of next? Actually, straw bale/mortar home construction is a big industry. In the garden, straw bales are big, too. Straw (not hay) bale gardening is a ...

In early June, our neighbor leaned over our chain-link fence, watched my husband for a second, then asked, “What, exactly, are you doing?” Rob was using a hose to soak four bales of hay, which he’d ...