We moved...to the country. I was thrilled at the prospect of having more garden space that was truly mine. I would develop it into a varmint-free enclosure where I could start to develop permanent garden beds that were mine, not to be handed off to the next person in line for the residential manager job I left.
That dream was a bit shattered when I stuck my shovel in the ground the first time. We were aware that the Niagara Escarpment runs through our land. Well, it is our land. Bedrock right below the surface. We have successfully planted here and there, but there is no big patch that we will be able to go down into our soil. We have to go up.
Fortune should have it that there is a large pile of old, but serviceable supply of small straw bales in the barn we now own. At first encounter we were thinking that this would become a major undertaking to remove it all so we could use this interior space for other use. The straw has now become a commodity, not a hindrance.
I picked up books at our local library. One in particular was Straw Bale Gardens by Joel Karsten. He clearly lays out the whys and hows of using this method. I got busy. I conditioned the bales for my strawberries and put them in.
I also used bales to frame out garden beds for my raspberries. I got a late start on it, so my garden is more of an overwintering plot with hopes that it will hold together through the growing season. In the end, I will not cart away the decomposed bales, but continue to built on this plot with hopes of having the raised beds I planned for my golden years of gardening.
This is obviously just a start. I will come back next spring with a follow-up on how things are holding together and how well the plants overwintered. In the interim, I am going to enjoy studying up and planning for the expansion of the straw bale empire in an old horse coral.
