How To Plant A STRAW BALE GARDEN In 4 Easy Steps

what's going on gardeners it's Tuesday April 18th and it is a gorgeous spring afternoon here on the Southeastern coast of North Carolina and on today's video I'm going to share with all of you how to plant your annual vegetables in a straw bale garden if you're new to the Channel please consider subscribing and hitting the Bell to receive new video notifications and check out our Amazon storefront and spreadshop in the video description for a list of the gardening products I use and awesome custom designed apparel and other gear your support is greatly appreciated I've spent a good chunk of this year putting together a series on growing vegetables in a straw bale garden I've covered all the topics from why you'd want to do this to testing the straw for herbicide contamination to conditioning the straw bales for vegetable gardening so check the video description because I will link to all of the videos if you want to know how I've gotten to this point step one of the planting process is to verify that your straw or hay if you choose to use that instead is not contaminated with any sort of herbicides that is going to affect your plants negatively and I'm not going to get into the find details of this because all of those details are linked down in the video description in the earlier videos however the short summary is this hey and sometimes straw is sprayed with herbicides now I did verify from the place that I bought my straw from first off that people have successfully used it in the past for strawbell gardening and they said yes there were no problems in the past however I decided to be conservative and test plant legumes into the straw bales first because legumes are extremely sensitive to most herbicides specifically the pernicious herbicide grazon so I want to show you the results of my experiment I planted some legumes in a random sample of the various straw bales you don't have to test plant every single one of them because they all came from the same batch so I have a pea plant that I planted here it's been in here for three weeks now it shows no deformed leaves it's perfectly green so we know that that straw bale is safe I have the same pea plant planted there air and that straw bale it is a-okay this one is a little bit behind because we got a ton of rain and the straw bale have held too much water but it is growing just fine it's greened up nicely now that we've dried out some this pea plant is just monstrous so it's doing great and then there's another pea plant over there that's doing well so they've done just fine for three weeks so I decided to also plant some cucumbers in there just as a test to make sure my methodology was good before I showed you this video and everything is growing great so I know that this method does work but before I get on to the next subject you'll also notice that there are a bunch of mushrooms growing all over my straw bales this is completely normal it's part of the decomposition process because these have been perfectly conditioned the natural fungal spores that are in the air will set and they will help assist in the breakdown of the straw so you see mushrooms that have grown and are in the process of dying they only have a lifespan of about 24 hours and it's also why some of my pea plants are stained with black that is actually from those mushrooms so no big deal perfectly normal if you see mushrooms growing in your conditioned straw bales it is actually an indicator that things went well and nature is naturally helping them decompose the second topic we have to discuss is how many plants you can plant inside a straw bale now these are the typical size straw bales that are 36 inches long by 18 inches wide so that gives you a total of 4.5 square feet of growing area so in a straw bale this size that gives me enough room for two tomato plants two cucumber plants two squash plants three pepper plants three basil plants so if you were to plant all the same things those are what will basically fit in a straw bale this size so there's a reason why when I test planted this snap pea plant in my straw bales to test for any herbicide contamination I planted it right in the center this plant has a very small root system it's not really going to affect the much larger tomatoes so I'm going to allow it to exist in here I'm going to plant all tomatoes in these straw bales so we're going to put one on the left and one on the right and we're going to leave that little tiny pea plant in the center so now I have all the plants that I'm planting laid out exactly where I'm going to plant them so now that they're all laid out I'm going to explain to you exactly how to plant them now we have to discuss topic number three which is adding a growing medium to the tops of your straw bales and this varies based on who you talk to however one thing is consistent no matter who you talk to and that is if you want to start seeds directly on top of your straw bales meaning direct seed your straw bales you have to put down about a one to two inch layer of potting mix on the tops of your straw bales because the seeds will not germinate directly on top of the straw bales so you have to add some type of of soil medium in order to encourage germination then once the seeds germinate The Roots will dig down into the straw bales naturally and take over now keep in mind I am not starting my seeds directly I have transplants that I already started and all of the transplants are in a root ball full of potting mix so some people say that when you plant a transplant like this that already has potting mix binding up the roots all you have to do is dig a hole and plant them directly inside the straw bale now some other people say that you should add some type of mix to the potting to the planting hole it is my personal opinion that it is a good idea to add a little bit of some type of potting mix or compost into the planting hole I'm going to be using this organic mushroom compost that I bought at Lowe's and the reason why I think this is important is it will help assist the roots from growing out in the root ball into a similar type of medium so there's less trend transplant shock going on there isn't that big gradient from the soil medium that the roots are used to growing in in this little pot to suddenly this dramatically different medium inside the straw bales so I think it's a good idea to amend the holes that you dig with a little bit of compost or a similar potting mix that way it can encourage the roots to grow out into a similar medium then they will naturally assimilate into the straw and they'll grow down into the straw so I'm using a planting medium some people say you don't have to I made all of my test plants I transplanted them all into additional compost and it worked every single time so that is the method that I'm going to go with this digging the planting holes in the straw bales is really easy remember we said we can plant about two tomato plants in one single three foot long straw bale so we're going to pick a point here and a point here which is going to give each plant half the Bale to grow in so we're just going to take a trowel and we're going to loosen up that straw in both locations and then we're going to take a trowel full of compost and just press it in there and that's going to give our root ball a little something for the roots to grow into where the medium is very similar to what they're already used to growing in and we're going to press that into the bale of straw just so those roots have something nice and friendly to grab onto the fourth and final topic that we have to discuss is fertilizing and I'm going to use two organic fertilizers in the planting hole when I plant these plants I'm going to use a simple organic all-purpose fertilizer this is a 533 NPK that I bought in clearance during the fall it doesn't have to be a 533 anything around a 555 will work as long as all the numbers are close and all of NP and K are represented and the second fertilizer that I'm going to amend the planting hole with is bone meal because it is a great source of phosphorus and calcium which will help greatly in root development and I love planting my tomatoes as well as any Nightshade or any flowering and fruiting plant including fruit trees with an amendment of bone meal because it's great for growing roots and it's great for growing flowers and fruits organic fertilizers like this granulated all-purpose fertilizer or this bone meal are not immediately bioavailable to plants they are inert in this form they have to be processed by the native microbiology in the soil which will break them down and they will decompose into the various components that the plants can then use now my gut is telling me that while these straw bales are composting very well so that means they are a living medium they probably don't have the soil diversity that normal garden soil does so I shouldn't rely too heavily on these organic granulated fertilizers because the straw bales may not process them fast enough so I'm also going to rely on some water-soluble fertilizers as well namely fish Emulsion which has been naturally processed via fermentation so it's immediately bioavailable by plants when you mix it in water and apply it with watering can and then I'm also going to amend my watering can with a synthesized Jack's all-purpose 20 20 20. I want to use a strong fertilizer on these plants because my plants are all late this year and I want them to grab hold very quickly in these straw bales and these man-made processed fertilizers are really good at the plants immediately uptaking them so I think they're going to give them the Boost they need now if you want to use any of these fertilizers and you don't have them I will link to them all on my Amazon storefront in the video description underneath the list soluble fertilizers and I will also Place direct links in the video description as well for your convenience each planting hole is going to be amended with about one and a half to two tablespoons of the organic all-purpose granulated fertilizer and one tablespoon of bone meal but I'm going to apply half to the bottoms of the holes and the other halves to the tops of the root ball so this is about one tablespoon of the organic granulated fertilizer that I'm putting in each planting gold and then each plant planting hole is going to get about half a tablespoon of that bone meal and now we are going to plant the plants we're going to carefully remove the root ball from the container and we're going to leave the tag in there so we can identify them we're going to open up that planting hole and press that root ball in and then we're going to top each plant with the other half of the all-purpose fertilizer and then the other half of the bone meal and then backfill each planting hole with a little bit more compost in order to lock it down now in most of my tomato planting videos when I plant my tomatoes in soil in my raised garden beds I always plant the stems deeply because the stems have the ability to root along them so I like deep planting so I can get a larger root structure obviously we can't do that in these straw bales the straw bales are too shallow for that and they don't have a soil medium that reach all the way down so in the straw bales we are basically just planting the root balls only and for that reason our plants may need a little bit of staking and support support because right now these are a little prone to wind so keep that in mind if you find that your straw bales are compacted so tightly that you can't spread them apart easily when you insert your trowel you can try stabbing the straw bales with the trowels instead which will make a planting hole simply keep stabbing and gently pressing the straw down until you make an indentation that's significantly larger than the size of the root ball that you're going to install into the straw bale it's very important that when you insert the compost into the planting holes that you press the compost down to make sure that there are no air pockets or voids in the straw there may be a lot of air pockets or voids in the straw bale and that will cause a problem because the roots will not be able to root in a large void so make sure that you press the compost in very well and that there are no voids where the base of the root ball is going to go and then once you place the root ball into the hole make sure that you press the compost all around the root ball to make sure there are no voids either just be gentle that you Don don't make the root ball fall apart press the compost firmly into the voids but don't press the root ball itself down too hard now we're going to water in all the plants with our soluble fertilizer and we're going to start off with the Alaska fish fertilizer and I'm going to give each of these two gallon watering cans about two to three tablespoons which is going to be like a two second pour just a nice healthy glug in there and then we're going to give them a half strength feeding of the Jax all-purpose 20 20 20. so these are two gallon watering cans we're going to put in one tablespoon so we'll do half a tablespoon per gallon concentration and then we're simply going to fill our watering cans with water and stir it around really well to make sure that all of the soluble fertilizer dissolves completely and then we're going to soak down each individual plant we'll make sure to saturate The Roots really well to water it in and try and encourage new root growth to form in the straw bales and all of my tomato plants have been watered in by the fertilizer and just like that about 90 to 95 percent of my straw bale garden has been planted out all of the indeterminate tomatoes that I put in here are officially planted for the season so that is done I have an eggplant right here that you can see that I think will be a great addition to the garden and then I have three different varieties of cucumbers over here and I still have a couple of gaps left so I might put a squash plant in here I might put something like a basil plant in here maybe another cucumber maybe another tomato I haven't quite decided yet or I may leave the gaps empty because I may want to leave space for a secondary planting maybe to give me some fall Tomatoes like some fall cherry tomatoes so either way very simply put my straw Bell Garden is pretty much planted out now it may seem like At first that your tomato plants aren't doing anything and they're not growing at all don't worry it's going to take about a week or so for the tomato plants to get used to the new medium and start growing roots in it so that first week or so it's going to spend time establishing itself into the straw bales around the second week you can expect to see upward growth once they get well rooted the tomato plants should take off and that is how you plant transplants in a straw bale garden so everybody I sure hope you found this video helpful if you did please make sure to hit that like button subscribe to the channel and please ring that notification Bell so you're notified when we release more videos like these if you're curious about the other videos in the straw bale gardening series I'll put them all in the video description and if you're curious about any of the products that I used in this video or that I use in my garden in general again I will put links directly in the video description and they're all in my Amazon storefront as well so check out my Amazon store to see everything I use in my garden in real life and while you're there you can also check out my spreadshop for custom merch if you want to support the channel thank you all so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next video oh Dale isn't this so much better buddy this is the way to go this is way better than riding in the back of Mommy's Mustang oh the green machine used to make Dale green but now he's doing really great he's doing great in the back of the truck he has so much room and he's having a great time

Channel: The Millennial Gardener

Views: 63,624

Keywords: straw bale gardening, straw bale garden, grow plants in straw bales, growing in straw bales, growing vegetables in straw bales, growing vegetables, straw bales, straw bale, straw, bales, grow plants, vegetable garden, garden, gardening, raised bed, organic gardening, gardening tips, garden tips, gardening tips and tricks, gardening hacks, garden hacks, food forest, edible landscaping, growing, organic, plants, vegetables, how to, diy, millennial gardener, the millennial gardener

Id: NQFJvRu7Ca0

Length: 15min 24sec (924 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 21 2023