Comments on: Straw Bale Vermi-Gardening?

By: Mr-Yan

Mr-Yan — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 00:12:11 +0000

I used straw bales to fill the bulk of my 4′ x 7′ x 18″ deep raised bed four seasons ago. Topped it with a few inches of poor homemade compost and planted it a few weeks later. After planted I put a tub of unknown bait “leaf” worms on the top. This was my first attempt with vermicompost. As it turned out it is now a giant worm bin.

Mid way into the second season I didn’t find any more straw in the garden bed.

There was significant settling during the first season and I have kept refilling the bed each fall with chopped leafs and un-composted organic matter.

By: Judy Rhodes

Judy Rhodes — Sun, 12 Apr 2015 14:29:29 +0000

I have had my 10gal worm bin for couple of months. After adding bedding & food,my bin is about two thirds full. When & how should I harvest?
Thanks everyone for all of the help (for the newbie).
I do seem to have happy worms & have finally spotted some cocoons

By: Karen

Karen — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 20:51:23 +0000

Wheat straw will have wheat come up. The reason that is not a problem is that it is not invasive to your garden. The bales will green and you can just let it be or pull and mulch out the top of bale.. no problem. Hay on the other hand (at least our local) is full of weed and grass seed. Not what you are looking for.

By: Gail Piper

Gail Piper — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 13:59:44 +0000

OOOps. I mean STRAW tends to not have that happen. Sorry!

By: Gail Piper

Gail Piper — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 13:59:16 +0000

Straw vs. Hay:
Per what I’ve read, hay tends to have lots of sprouts that you must deal with; hay tends to not have that happen very much. You might have a few. I noticed something yesterday sprouting from one of my bales sitting outside waiting to be seasoned. But, straw is supposed to be less problematic in that area.
I need to begin preparing them for planting in about a week or so.

By: HeidelbergChad

HeidelbergChad — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 05:26:28 +0000

This is indeed a great method. The HGFS presentation was truly fascinating.

By: Karen

Karen — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 22:32:04 +0000

This is year two for me! Last year went rather well but I placed my bales too close to the edge of the yard and didn’t have enough sun. I made a big worm bed with 5 more bales and composted into the middle, well you can imagine what I have… a great big straw colored chunk of worms this spring. I have already started turning that and putting the castings onto my new bales that I put in full sun this year. I started them Feb 1 so they have had a couple of snows, and I am looking forward to this growing season. Wheat straw is what I use, I don’t like mulching with the local hay anyway as it offers far too many weeds and grass. The wheat won’t be invasive so it is the better choice.

By: Gail Piper

Gail Piper — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 20:25:32 +0000

I have two bales I bought to try this and will be doing it on my driveway next to my house — the area gets good light for growing veggies. I plan to cure or season the straw with bloodmeal but I know it the bales will get hot inside. I wonder if once they are seasoned if they stay so warm… if so, it might be too warm for worms (?).
About worms finding the bales — not going to happen in my case since the bales are on concrete. I suppose if I learn the environment is not too hot for them I could put a few of my indoor worms in one of the bales just to see if they do OK. I could even hunt them down at end of season (unless the robins find them first).
I need to do a little more research on all this, but trying “a dash of worms” to my straw bale brew might be interesting.

By: Cooper

Cooper — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 20:08:12 +0000

Thanks for this post, Bentley. I’d heard of this, but had forgotten and may try it out. Adding in the vermicomposting (and your seal of approval) makes this really appealing to try out, especially as I may not have time or energy to create enough traditional garden beds or sheet-mulched beds.

Regarding the vermiculture aspect, how do you recommend going about introducing the worms to the straw bales (I am in a new house and haven’t vermicomposted outdoors as of yet)? I assume the worms would eventually find the bales anyway, but it sounded as if you were suggesting we could “add them” to the bales.

I also appreciate the above comment about herbicide on the bales — this makes buying from a farmer a lot more sensible as we can ask what sort of treatment the bales have had (I doubt the people at my local hardware store would know!).

By: Renee

Renee — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 16:33:43 +0000

I tried it unsuccessfully with hay bales but I know where I went wrong:

1: I was impatient and didn’t let them “cure” long enough so they got way too hot after I attempted to plant things in them…

2: (and this is pretty big) I used bales from my husband’s grandfather and recently found out that the herbicide he uses on them stays on it for up to 5 years (even post composting) so it’s pretty much worthless for planting certain things (like tomatoes, which was my main crop attempt).

So my lessons learned were to be patient, and to verify what was used on the fields while it was growing. A friend used straw and said his were really successful.