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Andrew and I have never gardened before. Like ever. But this year, we had a great opportunity that we just couldn’t pass up. So hopefully our black thumbs will turn green this summer and we can grow all sorts of vegetables! We are using a method I haven’t heard of before called straw bale gardening. We have been basing most of our knowledge on the book “Straw Bale Gardens Complete” by Joel Karsten.

My school has a straw bale garden set up and this year they were looking for families that wanted to plant in them. I immediately jumped at the chance because we don’t have a yard at home. I had been considering container planting on the deck, but straw bale gardening seems to be a much better choice.

Last year, a professional came and set up the garden and it apparently produced a lot of vegetables. So this year, a staff member at school has been conditioning the bales and all we have to do is water it. We don’t have to weed it because they will be planted in straw bales and weeds won’t grow in them. We also don’t have to water because there is a hose system on a timer set up. All we have to do is stop by every once in a while to check on everything and make sure the watering system is working. I think it sounds like a pretty sweet deal!

So this past week, we decided to start planting some of our seeds. A few plants (tomatoes, cucumbers, etc.) do better if they are started off as plants instead of just seeds. We bought a few, but decided not to plant them yet because living in Minnesota means we have still had freezing temperatures at night despite it being almost summer.

Here are the seeds we decided on. We really have no idea what we are doing, so we picked a lot of different things to try out. We only ended up planting a few this weekend because we were the only ones planting. I figure we will see if they actually grow. If it was too cold, we will just plant some more down the line.

Here is the setup before hand. It looks like we will get four bales, or one of the rows that you can see. Each row has a hose for the irrigation system. You can also faintly see the wire running across so we can plant things like beans that will grow up the wires. This setup and many other are pictured in the book.

Mac helped us plant. We made holes about 3 inches apart and planted our seeds. Afterwards we covered the top with some dirt.

Mac really liked helping. Next weekend we plan on planting the rest of our seeds and seedlings. I hope to update through the summer how straw bale gardening is going. I am excited to turn my thumb green. Now I need to go back and research some more with some help from “Straw Bale Gardens Complete”

So tell me, do you garden? How successful have you been? Has anyone tried straw bale gardening?

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. That means if you buy through my link, I may receive compensation at no extra cost to you. For more information, see my disclosure page here.