Anyone tried growing tomatoes / cucumbers etc in a straw bale?

Best,

- h

Anyone tried growing tomatoes / cucumbers etc in a straw bale?

Best,

- h
I saw an article about that in a copy of Garden News early Feb. but I
did not read it. I`ll try and find it and tell you what it said.
kate

In article , Kate Morgan
writes
Anyone tried growing tomatoes / cucumbers etc in a straw bale?

Best,

- h
I saw an article about that in a copy of Garden News early Feb. but I
did not read it. I`ll try and find it and tell you what it said.
kate

ISTR that it was done along similar lines to ring culture - i.e. the
plants were put into suitable sized pots and the pots were plunged into
the straw which was kept moistened. It sounds a bit tricky to me but it
could help to avoid some disease problems.
--
Alan & Joan Gould - North Lincs.

When we grew Cues in Straw bales we used to give the bales a very good
soaking over a couple of days, then dose with a high nitrogen feed so that
you get the bale composting, Keep it/them well watered it should get to a
high temp, 110f or more as it rots. As it cools down to around 75f you
plant into it.
If you plant to early then the ammonia being produced by the bale rotting
will kill the plants you put in, also you have to make sure that the straw
was grown without the use of systemic weedkillers

--
David Hill
Abacus Nurseries
www.abacus-nurseries.co.uk

When we grew Cues in Straw bales we used to give the bales a very good
soaking over a couple of days, then dose with a high nitrogen feed so that
you get the bale composting, Keep it/them well watered it should get to a
high temp, 110f or more as it rots. As it cools down to around 75f you
plant into it.
If you plant to early then the ammonia being produced by the bale rotting
will kill the plants you put in, also you have to make sure that the straw
was grown without the use of systemic weedkillers

--
David Hill
Abacus Nurseries
www.abacus-nurseries.co.uk
maybe I could grow toms in my muck heap, that gets wonderfully warm :-)

kate

Well this was the principal of the old "French gardening" and later the "Hot
bed" you took out around 6 to 8 inches of soil then built a heap of about 2
ft of fresh Horse manure to form Beds around 6ft wide, then the soil was put
back on top to form the beds, after the heap had heated up and the "Manure"
was cooling down then the beds were planted with a variety of veg.
This was the first form of soil warming, and worked very well, and you can
immagine what the soil become like after 20 or 30 years of this form of
growing.
In the ld french gardening you used around 300 tons of manure to the acre of
garden, but when horses were the only form of transport you had no problem
geting the quantities, and any way if the folkes in the Big house had a
stable of a dozen or so horses you were fairly self supporting for manure
for the garden.
Ahhhhhh....... those were the days.

--
David Hill
Abacus Nurseries
www.abacus-nurseries.co.uk

snip
In the ld french gardening you used around 300 tons of manure to the acre of
garden, but when horses were the only form of transport you had no problem
geting the quantities, and any way if the folkes in the Big house had a
stable of a dozen or so horses you were fairly self supporting for manure
for the garden.
Ahhhhhh....... those were the days.

--
David Hill
Abacus Nurseries
www.abacus-nurseries.co.uk

Thank you David, interesting and helpful information :-)
kate

Well this was the principal of the old "French gardening" and later the
"Hot
bed" you took out around 6 to 8 inches of soil then built a heap of about
2

I did this the first year I had my current greenhouse. In the winter, I got
in tons of manure and stacked it around the insides of the greenhouse so
that it was about 2 foot high. It then generated lots of nice heat. Early
spring, I planted it with tomatoes, cucs, melons etc and got an excellent
crop. However, it soon got re-absorbed into the soil.

Best,

- h

I saw an article about that in a copy of Garden News early Feb. but I
did not read it. I`ll try and find it and tell you what it said.

Thanks Kate but I saw this article. I was wandering if anyone had actually
tried it for real....

Best,

- h