Straw Bale Garden

My husband and I both grew up eating vegetables grown in our home gardens. Neither of us had ever eaten any veggies from the grocery store. It has been important to both of us to start our own garden, for our family. We have tried container gardening, and a raised bed garden. The container garden didn't do well for us because we used Terra Cotta pots, and it was too hard to keep the soil watered without over watering, and then the soil got too hot, and on and on it goes. The raised bed was better, but we were very limited with space. With our raised bed, it was also very expensive because we needed to buy the soil and the wood to build it. We just removed the bed, and found termites, which was disgusting, and a little scary. After all of those problems, I tried to find something else, and found straw bale gardening.

For us, straw bale gardening seems like the perfect solution. It doesn't cost much to start up, and seems to be a great way to have home grown vegetables. My only dilemma was trying to find out if the bales that you see at garden centers are treated with anything. I called two of my local garden centers and asked them where they get the bales, and they both told me the same farm. I decided to call the farm to ask them about the bales, and they told me that they get the straw from a variety of farmers, so they would have to call me back with an answer. Unfortunately, I never got a call back from them, so I was back to square one. My next step was to find organic straw bales. This is an impossible thing to do. I did a Google search, and was coming up with absolutely nothing in my area. Apparently there isn't a market for organic straw bales? I was getting frustrated, and was venting my frustrations to my husband when I said, "I'm gonna call some of the vendors from the local farmer's market, someone has to know an organic wheat farmer." Then it dawned on me...Google organic wheat farmers. When I did, I finally found what I was looking for. I found a certified organic farm about 45 minutes away. I was so happy! I called them, and he said they had some bales in their barn from about two years ago. He said they don't really do the small bales anymore because the people they usually sell their straw to are fellow farmers that are looking for bedding for their animals. The size that they sell now are too big for a little straw bale garden. He gave me his son's number and told me to give him a call because he's the one in charge of all of the straw stuff. So I called him and scheduled a time to go to the farm to pick up the bales. When we got there, I told him about my search, and suggested they get online and advertise that they have organic straw bales. He said he'd look into it, and might start doing small bales for just such a thing. He said it's more work to make the small bales, but I hope they will continue to do them, I told him I would give him some information on where to advertise, so hopefully he will do it.

Anyway, that's where we are now. I will be doing a lot of updates on this, as well as explaining, as we go along. In the meantime, here is a picture of what it looks like now: