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How to improve clay soils and still be growing the first year

Bryant RedHawk

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Location: Arkansas - Zone 7B/8A stoney, sandy loam soil pH 6.5

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posted 5 years ago

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This is about some experimental garden plots my wife and I have been working in since 2014, the first year we grew some of our own foods on Buzzard's Roost.
Our soil, while not solid clay only had a measured 2 inches (5.1mm) of true top soil present, the second horizon was pure red clay mixed with stones, this topsoil was the result of 7 years of laying fallow with primary and secondary inhabitant plants growing as the result of a fire.
We had spent one year clearing the secondary plants (blackberry canes and sumac trees) so we would have space to plant garden plots and orchard trees.
Because the soil was so shallow we determined that straw bale growing was going to be our least invasive, least disturbance method which would let us get food plants growing and producing the fastest.
I decided that this was a perfect opportunity to do some testing and documenting of how soil reacts to such an endeavor.

What we have done is 1. determine where we wanted the initial gardens to lay on the landscape, set double rows of rectangular bales of clean, non-sprayed wheat straw that were covered in 2 inches of spent coffee grounds that were poked into the bales with a round, sharpened stick, and watered every day for three weeks.
Once the bales interior was heating we dug holes to plant in and used a home made potting soil that was 1/2 compost, 1/4 bagged potting mix and 1/4 top soil acquired from an area I was getting ready for pouring a footing for a work shop.
The plants we grew were: tomatoes, broccoli, bell peppers, and beans, these were chosen because we eat a lot of these items.
Plants were all watered in with a 1:12 dilution of fish emulsion and multi vitamins, the vitamins were a 4 tabs to 1 gal. solution prior to being diluted to the 1:12 final mix.
We also double dug and improved the soil in a 4x8 area for growing beets, carrots and squashes.
That soil was amended with 4 rectangular bales of straw and 5 50lb. bags of potting mix, seeds were watered with the same solution as the plants in the bales.

I also inoculated all the bales and the 4x8 "root vegetable" space with mushroom slurries of mushrooms found growing on our land; jew's ear, lion's mane, true turkey tail and boulet's.

All of our vegetables produced quite well that first year, but more importantly, I was then able to study how the soil under the bales had reacted to the bales being in place and growing foods.
The only "additive items" that touched the soil under all the bales was what leached down from the rains passing through the bales, no chemical or other fertilizers were added through the growing season, so the only nutrients were what was there at the time of planting into the bales.

Year one end of summer vegetable production was on November 25th at which time the plants were removed from the straw bales, the tomatoes had put roots all the way through the bales and down into the soil to a depth of 1.25 ft.
The peppers had also put roots all the way through the bales but these roots stopped at just 3 inches into the soil beneath the bales, the beans had mirrored the peppers with their root growth but the broccoli had only sunk roots to about 2/3 the depth of the bales.
One end bale and one middle bale were removed and the soil beneath was checked for friability, texture, mineral content, microorganism types and numbers of organisms per type (not species).
The friability (looseness of the soil complex) was equal to soil samples from a flood plain that was under agriculture in the ability to form a ball but still fall apart when touched. (good friability)
The texture was greatly improved and organic matter had risen from 4ppt to 38ppt. A block was cut out and examined with a hand held 100x microscope and there were 100 micro channels per cu.cm found.
Previous samples had shown 4ppt organic matter and 10 micro channels per cu.cm. This indicates a marked increase in the ability of exchange of gasses and water.
The bales that were removed were put back into place and a winter crop of greens was seeded onto the bale tops, which were watered in with tap water through a hose with a mister attached.
In the spring the bales had decomposed enough as to have collapsed from approx. 2 feet tall down to 1 foot tall with a rounded top structure.
Test plot one had these bales removed and the remaining material was incorporated into the 4x8 root vegetable garden space.
(the root vegetable space had produced good beets but these were small sized, the carrots did not produce well while the squash produced 5 1 lb. fruits per plant.)

Year one conclusions were that by growing in straw bales, set on "virgin" top soil over clay ground, the results will be an increase in depth of topsoil characteristics as a result of the bales being in place.

I'll get to year two tomorrow if possible.

Redhawk

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Trace Oswald

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posted 5 years ago

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This is a very timely post because I'm getting ready to do this very thing on a new plot of land in the next couple weeks. I have approximately 80 organic straw bales that have been sitting outside all winter that will be the basis for the new garden area. I have some coffee grounds and I believe I know where I can get a bunch more in the next day or two. Water will be the biggest issue because I don't have a water source on the land yet so I'll be bucketing it in on days we don't get rain, but I'm excited to get started. Thanks for posting this.

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Bryant RedHawk

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Location: Arkansas - Zone 7B/8A stoney, sandy loam soil pH 6.5

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Year 2 plots 2 and 3 of straw bale use and soil/subsoil changes due to year long coverage with bales. Starting date:March 5th, 2015

Plot 2 original bales were leveled off because of slumping over the winter making the planting surface undulating. New bales were then installed on top of this leveled substrate of original bales.
New bales saturated with water for 3 weeks prior to spent coffee grounds mixed with year old manure compost then watered another 2 weeks prior to planting due to consistent rain fall, every other day.
At onset the soil tested similar enough to the original plot one year end results as to be considered identical.
A new long probe thermometer had been acquired and was used to check internal temp. of bales just prior to planting, internal bale temps averaged 110f with a low of 93 and a high of 122.
Once again the surface applied amendments were worked down into the bales with a sharpened stick and the bales were kept saturated, both by the initial three weeks of water additions and the spring monsoon like rain events that are typical of the region.
Plants that were transplanted into the bales of plot 2 were cucumber, zucchini squash, Yellow and Red Bell pepper. Each plant was placed in a hole cut and removed then worked in a circular motion to loosen the straw surrounding the hole.
Each plant was placed and compost enriched "potting soil" was then packed in around the root ball, which had been loosened and roots tweezed out, and watered in with a 1:12 vitamin/multi mineral solution.
At the end of planting the double row of bales all plants were watered in again with the same solution to insure complete contact with the planting soil and bale straw.
pH of bales was checked with a fisher scientific model 310 pH meter and probe, initial pH was found to be 6.8.
Week One
At the end of week one plants growth at growing tips showed they were establishing new roots and 2 tablespoons of Sea-90 was sprinkled around the rim of each planting hole.
Bales were checked for moisture content and no water was added.
Week Two
Plants had put out 2 sets of new leaf growth and had grown vertically 2 inches.
No additions were made to the growing medium, moisture content was checked and no water was added.
Week Three
Plants grew vertically 3.5 inches and the beginning of secondary stems were evident on the pepper plants, cucumber vines were wrapped into circles so they would remain on top of the bale vine growth was 1 foot and blossoms were found to be starting to form.
Zucchini leaves were measured at 4.5 inches width, no blossom stalks were found to be forming.
Week Four
Soil sample probe (rod opening capped end type) was used at a 30 degree angle at the base of each bale's mid point and a plug sample was taken of the top 5 inches of soil, insertion tip cap was kept closed until stiff resistance was felt at the T handle at which point the cap was opened by activating the rod,
Probe was then "screwed" into the soil to be able to retrieve a solid sample core, when the required 5 inch depth was measured on the probe tube the cap was closed by rod activation and the probe removed.
Sample cores were expelled onto saran wrap then rolled and ends folded and tied to seal the sample for transport to the lab for testing.
Peppers had grown another 3.5 inches in height, blossoms were observed opening leaves were 3 inches across at the base and secondary branches were 3 inches long .
Zucchini had male flowers forming at the 4th set of leaf/stalk junction, no female flowers were found to be forming yet. Leaves were 10 inches across.
Cucumber vines were hanging over the edge of the bale almost touching the ground, four flowers were found on each plant but no baby cucumbers were forming yet.
Bale moisture check was performed and 1 gallon of plain water was applied to each bale. Ambient temperature was 78 degrees, humidity was 66%

addendum
Weeks 6,7,8, no tests were performed because of being away from the farm
Week 9; all plants growing at a rate of 1/2 inch per 24 hour period, bees are busy pollinating flowers of all tomatoes, cucumbers and beans which are prolific in flower production.
A core sample of the bales was examined for each bale and found to have four species of mycelium and 15 species of bacteria. The bacteria are congregated around the root systems of the plants and at least two of the mycelium are ectomycorrhizae.
Minerals lacking were augmented with a granite dust spread over the tops of the whole bale structure and lightly watered with a rain wand to get the dust down into the bales to prevent wind blowing it away.
Harvest of the tomato plants yielded 30 ripe fruits from 4 plants, fruits from each plant were sampled for lab work to list out the nutrients, and taken to an outside lab with better equipment for performing these test.
Beets in the soil bed were thinned for the second time with the pulled beets measuring 4cm diameter.

Redhawk

Lina Joana

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How often was the fish emulsion and vitamin mix applied? Was it part of multiple waterings, or just the first?

Lina
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Bryant RedHawk

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Location: Arkansas - Zone 7B/8A stoney, sandy loam soil pH 6.5

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hau Lina, the vitamin solution is used at the time of transplanting, it helps the roots recover from the shock. The fish emulsion is applied a week after transplanting and once a month for two months after that initial application.

Bales are great for this regimen since any nutrients not captured by the soil and straw will make its way down to the soil below.

Continuation of year 2, plots 2 and 3;

The soil below the bales was core tested and microscopy was performed.
1cm yielded 2000 bacteria of five specie types and 7 fungi species had multiple strands of hyphae growing through all core samples, this indicates that the soil is becoming well populated.
Mineral quantities tested higher than prior to bale placement quantities, partly because of the bacteria and partly because of the table spoon per plant of sea-90 that was used at week 4.
Without any uses of compost teas the microorganism counts have risen 275% over year one in the soil, bale activity seems to remain constant once the bales are decomposing internally.
continued soil improvement is anticipated through out the rest of this growing season and bacteria counts are expected to rise to 5-7 thousand per cm along with an increase in fungal strands.
Bacteria have been observed traveling along the fungal hyphae which may be due to exudate emission by the plant roots, further testing should show if this is indeed the case.

Redhawk

John Tietjen

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posted 5 years ago

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Bryant,

Thanks for the informative thread and your diligence in collecting the data. I will be trying this next year on my farm. Too busy building a house now to do much gardening. I would be interested in your opinion of laying our the double rows in my garden on contour since I have a bit of a slope. Over time with successive years of bales would this become a modified swale system? If I am following your method the previous years bales would be leveled to accommodate the new bales each year? How many years do you think it would take for the native soil to convert to a non-bale system? Here in Tennessee I have very similar soil. Due to the rocky soil tree planting and post hole digging is a challenge.

Thanking you in advance

Eric Hanson

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Hello,

Personally I have become a fan of making a woodchip bed about a foot deep and dig fertile holes for planting (tomatoes in my case). After planting I inoculate with wine cap mushrooms, cover with straw and wait a year. My 1 year old chip bed has, thanks to the wine cap spawn, has thoroughly broken down the chips and is almost in condition for direct planting small seeds. I am growing peas directly in the chips at this point and I will be planting beans as well.

Hopefully by next year the wood chips will be converted into a high quality bedding, but in the meantime I am growing squash where the tomatoes grew last year.

I have a new chip bed where I am planting lettuce, radishes and spinach—small seeds—into fertile trenches. I will inoculate this bed with wine caps shortly and with luck by next year I will have a perfectly good garden bed.

Long story short, I use fertile holes and trenches until the wood chips are sufficiently broken down.

Eric

Some places need to be wild

Bryant RedHawk

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Location: Arkansas - Zone 7B/8A stoney, sandy loam soil pH 6.5

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Good questions John,

I am using the exact setup you asked about, bales setup on contour to create a swale system through the bales becoming the berm.

I set up bales 2 wide and however long I want the swale to be in the end.
If the bales are nice and tight they will last two years of planting at which time they will be flat all on their own and new bales are just set on top of the old ones.
If the ground slightly sloped I just set the bales and let them lean with the soil surface, by the time the bales have deteriorated enough to be replaced, they will be fairly flat on the surface or you can use a garden rake to level them on top.
If you get bales that are pretty loose to start with, these last one year at which point the rake comes out and they are leveled prior to setting the new set of bales in place.
It takes me three sets of bales to develop the swale/berm profile enough that it functions as if it was a dug system.

Once I have set a line of bales I wet them all the way through then I put on the coffee grounds so that they are about 1 inch thick over at least the middle third of the bale width and water that in gently or let the rains do that work for me.
I've found that the longer you have the bales in the "Prep" mode, the better they preform the first year of growing. This years bales were set out in January and we started planting in them at the first week of April.
I did water them at the beginning but since that first week only rain has added any moisture to the bales.
The two ways to plant in bales are; 1. dig holes for each plant, add some good compost mixed with soil then plant the plant. 2. dig out a trench the length of the bales and fill with the compost/soil blend then plant in the trench, leave about 8 inches of bale at the ends to hold the soil in place.

If you want to really speed up the quality of plant growth you can add some mycorrhizae mix as you plant the plants then come back a few weeks later with a compost tea spray for the bale tops.
Usually I have found that the fungi and slime molds that come from the coffee grounds do a good job of inoculating the bales with mycelium, as well as the spores that land on the bales throughout the growing season.
The bales will slowly discolor on the exterior but the interior will turn black and have many white mycelium threads running through it.
If your plant leaves are showing missing minerals, a couple of tablespoons of sea-90 or a similar non-purified sea salt should take care of the issue.

Redhawk

Dennis Bangham

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Can small berms be made with wood chips? It is a minor slope area less than 5 degrees. Similar to what you did with bales? I have been making raised beds over large portions of my land and now I know where the water flows because of the signs left on the wood chip floor. I would like to start trapping the water long enough so it drains into the soil.
Would it be better to mix anything in with the wood chips, like sand, expanded shale, compost, peat and a little dirt? Plant some clover on top so the roots hold it together longer? My wood chips often have fungi growing in them when I finally get them to where they need to be.

Other people may reject you but if you lie in the forest floor for long enough the moss and fungi will accept you as one of their own!

Bryant RedHawk

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Location: Arkansas - Zone 7B/8A stoney, sandy loam soil pH 6.5

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I can't think of any reason that would prevent making berms with wood chips, the only issue would be washing away of the chips by the water flow. The bales work because they have weight and are usually bound with bailing twine to hold them together.
If you experienced any washing, you could try using some sort of back stop, it would only need to be tall enough to stop the water flowing under and floating the wood chips.

In our hog area I use the rocks the hogs have rooted up to make berms that are in the 4 to 10 inch range in height, I have to also make them at least 2 feet wide so the hogs don't drag the new berm away if they walk over it (which they seem to delight in doing so the extra width stops them from trying).

Redhawk

Dennis Bangham

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Thanks Dr. Redhawk. I have a lot of concrete blocks that I use to make raised beds and once the beds have a lot of root growth throughout, I remove them to make another bed. I can use these as a backstop for the chips. I have started to make some channels and use this idea to make a couple of swales that should be easy to remove if I ever sell and move to a larger lot. Converting my lawn over to a fruit jungle.

I do the raised beds because of Karst topography and underground streams that show up for a while and then move on to another spot. This seems to work and was a solution after losing a couple good trees to drowning.

Other people may reject you but if you lie in the forest floor for long enough the moss and fungi will accept you as one of their own!

Diane Neusch

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Location: South Central Oklahoma, North Central Texas

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Hello,

I'm trying to start a garden in an area formerly used as a cow pasture that is planted with bermuda.

Would this method work on clay soil currently planted with bermuda? Should I put a layer of cardboard under the bales?
Or in the case of bermuda, would it be better to till then cover with black plastic for a few months?

Thanks!

Lila Stevens

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posted 2 years ago

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This information is so inspiring. Thank you for taking the time to post all of this detailed and useful information. This might be a good (and fun) way to improve my soil where it's mainly just clay.

I love that this can create a kind of berm system to down the water as it moves down my land. We live on a slight slope, and, when it rains heavily, so much of it just runs off in little streams and rivulets to the drainage ditch down by the road. I've been wanting to add swales eventually, but I know with everything else going on, and my indecision on where and how to place them, I probably won't get around to it any time soon.

I'm thinking a few rows of straw bale gardens, set on contour, would at least help slow the water even the first year. Is that correct?

Bryant RedHawk

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Yes bales will slow the runoff water. Placing them on contour will also give you a swale effect that can be adjusted, which is better than finding out you dug swale is not quite right.

Redhawk

Lila Stevens

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That is an excellent point about being able to adjust them. I always learn so much from your posts. Thank you!

Bryant RedHawk

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Location: Arkansas - Zone 7B/8A stoney, sandy loam soil pH 6.5

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Diane Neusch wrote:Hello,

I'm trying to start a garden in an area formerly used as a cow pasture that is planted with bermuda.

Would this method work on clay soil currently planted with bermuda? Should I put a layer of cardboard under the bales?
Or in the case of bermuda, would it be better to till then cover with black plastic for a few months?

Thanks!

Yes, in fact I would go for 2 layers of cardboard under the bales. Tilling would make more Bermuda risomes and we want to kill them instead.. plastic, while good for solarization tends to shed micro plastic particles into the soil.

Redhawk

Lila Stevens

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posted 2 years ago

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Would this work well with grass-hay bales, and if so, is there anything in the process you would do differently?

I did pick up 10 bales of wheat straw to start with, because I just happened to be near the only place in my area (an hour and a half away) that carries unsprayed straw. Since it is wheat straw, and I am near Austin, Texas, I am sure it was trucked in from some distance. It costs $8/ bale.

I buy organically-grown grass-hay for my goats for $8/ bale from about 45 minutes away. It's actually not much out of my way when I run errands in that direction a few times a month, so the drive is not much of an issue. It is grown and baled right there, and a by-product of them mowing their huge, organic pecan orchard. I can get non-feed-quality bales from the bottom layer of their storage barn for $6/ bale. The only thing that makes them non-feed-quality is that they've been in contact with the ground, insulating the other bales against moisture.

There are a lot of weed seeds in the hay bales, but there are a lot of wheat seeds in the straw bales too. I figure any seeds close enough to the edges to sprout, I can pull out easily and give to the chickens.

I'm thinking hay is going to be higher in nitrogen than straw, right? So perhaps might need less nitrogen added? Also, the hollow "straws" in the grass are thinner and there are lots of flat blades of grass and weed leaves, etc in there too, so maybe it would not work quite as well? I did check out the original straw bale gardening book from my library and read it before asking this question, but he never really explains why to use straw and not hay, unless I missed that part. But he does mention that the hollow structure of straw is what makes it work so well.

Murphy Terrell

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posted 2 years ago

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Please use latin names of mushrooms instead of common and I object to the use of slurs.
"... jew's ear, lion's mane, true turkey tail and boulet's."

Bryant RedHawk

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Murphy Terrell wrote:Please use latin names of mushrooms instead of common and I object to the use of slurs.
"... jew's ear, lion's mane, true turkey tail and boulet's."

Since the purveyors of spawn use the common vernacular names of the mushrooms, I think it would be confusing to most folks to use scientific naming.
And this forum is about soil improvement, not mushrooms.

Redhawk

Loretta Liefveld

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Location: North Central Idaho-Zone 6b (officially 7a)

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A couple of questions:

1. I keep reading about swales 'on contour'. What exactly does 'on contour' mean? And how do you use it?
2. I think a 'swale' is like a purposeful low, shallow area that you create in order to handle water flow... is that correct?
3. A couple of years ago, I put down cardboard, then I was going to put leaves and stuff on top of it, to transform a weedy area into a planting area. I had been told that the cardboard would break down and the worms would end up mixing it up, improving the friability of the clay soil. Then the chickens got into it and scratched all the 'stuff' off of it, so the cardboard ended up in tiny pieces all over the yard. Last year, I put more cardboard on top where it was missing, and did it again. Of course, it happened again, but only in parts of the area. I just got done putting cardboard down again, and covering it with a 2-4" layer of pine needles and forest duff. Here's my concern: When I pulled up some of the old cardboard in the areas that had stayed there, and there was zero improvement to the clay soil. It was gooey and muddy. (living in North Central Idaho, we're still having some snow and rain, and soil hasn't dried out much). Maybe I'm missing the point. Will this method ever improve the soil underneath? Or am I just creating a plant-able 'layer' on top of the clay soil? If that's the case, won't the clay soil just make the plants have 'wet feet'?

It's my space, my mess.
If you don't like it, don't come in.

Bryant RedHawk

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hau Loretta, Swales are a shallow trench that are typically set at a 1 degree angle down slope so gathered water moves slowly to a shallow gathering pond before moving into another swale down slope. On contour would be a line along a hill that is at the same elevation from one end to the other. Swales on contour are designed to sheet flow water down slope to help prevent erosion.

Improving clay soil is not the same as killing "weeds", which is what a cardboard layer is designed to do. Clay soil improvement is what deep mulching was designed for. Deep mulch starts at the 6 inch depth up to a.foot of depth or deeper. Straw or hay bales are recommended for growing a crop or crops while you are "conditioning" the soil below. I hope this helps, you can read more about soil improving in my soil series.

Redhawk

Loretta Liefveld

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Location: North Central Idaho-Zone 6b (officially 7a)

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Bryant RedHawk wrote:hau Loretta, Swales are a shallow trench that are typically set at a 1 degree angle down slope so gathered water moves slowly to a shallow gathering pond before moving into another swale down slope. On contour would be a line along a hill that is at the same elevation from one end to the other. Swales on contour are designed to sheet flow water down slope to help prevent erosion.

Improving clay soil is not the same as killing "weeds", which is what a cardboard layer is designed to do. Clay soil improvement is what deep mulching was designed for. Deep mulch starts at the 6 inch depth up to a.foot of depth or deeper. Straw or hay bales are recommended for growing a crop or crops while you are "conditioning" the soil below. I hope this helps, you can read more about soil improving in my soil series.

Redhawk

Thanks so much for that clarification about swales and 'on contour'. My garden areas are relatively flat... a slight slope in some areas, but not much. At least not enough that I think I need to start contouring my garden with swales.

I also really appreciate your clarification about the cardboard layer. Boy, was I mistaken about that! So was the person that told that to me. I think I'll leave the cardboard on this year, since I've already done all the work. Next year I'll take up whatever hasn't decomposed, and then add the 6-12" of mulch.

It's my space, my mess.
If you don't like it, don't come in.

Emilie McVey

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Location: central Pennsylvania

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I've read several articles that planting in straw bales has destroyed people's gardens, due to the pesticides the grass/hay was sprayed with that then gets leached into their soil. I've googled "organic straw bales", and the closest available is about 3,000 miles away, in Washington State. Is there another way to find them? I live in central Pennsylvania.

Thanks for any tips!

Tomorrow's another day...

John Hutter

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Location: Central Oregon Coast Range, valley side

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Fellow geological clay soil wranglers, carry on and score!

I did this, sowing 100 different plant seeds over a few years.. in red brick clay (soil). Maybe it's gray or maybe its yellow, I think the color just describes which element you are overloaded on (red often = magnesium.) Bottom line is that it's clay, it's gtg for cob but don't expect the hardiest Brassica to dominate into a lush ground cover, even with all the hours of weeding.

( I was amused by the fact that the rocky mountain Wheaton labs "clay" had enough sand/silt bits for me to make out lots of individual sand bits with my naked eye.... naw, that's sandy/silty AF based on where I am from!)

My recommendation, short of the suggested hay bales and fish emulsion etc (inputs I want to guess are "required" when attempting to cultivate edibles with more calories than a dandelion in red brick clay in the first year) is to use the brick clay land to "cultivate" whichever weeds are going to thrive in it without you, in your climate. In the central coast range of Oregon, it is the likes of quackgrass, oxeye daisy, nipplewort, broad leaf dock and cat's ears (or sow hardy fast growing perennials like himilayan blackberry, scotchs broom and grand fir and come back to chop and drop it in 5 years) and then making big fuddin piles of the "hay/straw" matter, and then attempt to grow something in the compost you make out of that. If you pee on that compost pile, it will make 1 small squash, year one (but not without pee in my experience.) It seems like you should be able to get a tomato out of that Y1 if you pee on it enough, but maybe my pee ain't yellow enough or something...

Not clay but conifer relevant, a big heaping pile of coast doug fir needles made in the late fall, and left to decompose until spring, will germinate and make a small plant with a single squash flower, but it won't set a fruit (here.) I didn't continue that experiment tho, I bought some fish meal and bat poop instead and stuff instead! So write a letter to protect the fish and the bats! ( or your eroded poor soil site is a 5+ year plan instead of 1!)

Many things last lifetimes or eons, but the only thing that's permanent is the ever-changing flow itself

Loretta Liefveld

Posts: 93

Location: North Central Idaho-Zone 6b (officially 7a)

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posted 2 years ago

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John Hutter wrote:

( I was amused by the fact that the rocky mountain Wheaton labs "clay" had enough sand/silt bits for me to make out lots of individual sand bits with my naked eye.... naw, that's sandy/silty AF based on where I am from!)

..... use the brick clay land to "cultivate" whichever weeds are going to thrive in it without you, in your climate. /quote]

haha!!! Love it! Yeah, I grow great weeds! I had no idea that the Oregon coast had so much clay! But then, you do say 'valley side', so not so close to the coast. Willamette Valley??

It's my space, my mess.
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Lila Stevens

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posted 2 years ago

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Emilie McVey wrote:I've read several articles that planting in straw bales has destroyed people's gardens, due to the pesticides the grass/hay was sprayed with that then gets leached into their soil. I've googled "organic straw bales", and the closest available is about 3,000 miles away, in Washington State. Is there another way to find them? I live in central Pennsylvania.

Thanks for any tips!

You might want to try Craigslist. Search for straw and then read the listings that come up carefully. That's how I was able to find "unsprayed" wheat straw in my area. You can also ask around in local online gardening groups or forums. It seems there should be grains grown not too far from where you are, and some must be unsprayed. You can also call feed stores; mine came from a small feed store that happened to have a Craigslist ad, or I wouldn't have found them.

My understanding with the "unsprayed" straw I bought is that they probably used chemical fertilizers to grow it (since they don't list it as organic), but they did not spray any herbicides on it. By the way, what you really want to watch out for, as far as ruining your garden, are certain broad-leaf herbicides (to kill unwanted weeds in the crop), not pesticides (which kill bugs). Though both are undesirable in my book, the persistent herbicides are what will ruin your garden and make the plants simply not grow well (or at all) for years or until you remove the contaminated soil.

Also, there are various ways to test the straw before using it. I think one way is to make a "tea" by soaking the straw in water and then using that tea to water potted tomatoes and beans, and see if it hurts them (be sure to have a control group too, that gets watered with plain water). I just read "Straw Bale Gardens, Complete" by Joel Karsten, who invented this method. He recommends chopping up a small amount of the straw you want to test, and mixing it 50/50 with potting soil. Fill 5 small pots with that. Then fill 5 small pots with plain potting soil (as the control group). Use these pots to plant tomatoes, peas, beans, and carrots, having the control pots mirror the test pots. Those particular plants will be the most susceptible to broad-leaf herbicides. Let them grow and compare the test and control groups as they grow.

I really recommend reading his book if you are thinking of doing this. I am conditioning my bales in a more loose, "permie" type way than he recommends in his book, but he offers so many awesome ideas, as far as how to make nice, neat, functional trellises and mini-greenhouses out of them, and it's also just a really easy read and really inspiring.

I'm not sure if I will always use this method, due to straw being not particularly local or cheap where I live (near central Texas) but I am trying it this year with 10 bales, in addition to other styles of garden beds.

John Indaburgh

Posts: 523

Location: SW PA USA zone 6a altitude 1188ft Grafter, veggie gardener

posted 2 years ago

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I have grown corn in clay soil with maybe a 1/2 inch of sod which I left, just mowed the area and pushed some seed into the ground after using a steel dibber to make a hole. The corn will grow, poorly. The stalks were maybe half height, the cobs of Country Gentleman not fully developed. Pretty sad, but shows me what can be done the first year with no work.

I have also dug in nothing but a couple inches of peat into raw clay with the sad sod layer which grows much better crops, nothing to really complain about. My preferred method however is to dig in two inches of well composted manure and then dig in another inch digging north south if I had dug east west on the first path. This chops up the clumps and gets some organic matter spread more evenly thru the soil. Another soil amendment I've used is mushroom compost which is manure that has been used to grow two crops of mushrooms.

All three of these methods will grow crops the first year. I'd recommend the peat, manure, or mushroom manure to grow a crop as soon as your finished digging the soil. However I wouldn't recommend planting root crops or leafy veggies in ground with even well composted manure, recently applied, as I'm afraid of it not being safe to eat, and it certainly is unappetizing. I'd recommend adding the manures at least the previous fall.

It's my opinion that what has happen to the soil here at my place is that for the 70 years that I know of a house being here the soil has at best had some dry fertilizer added. During my 15 years here I've blown the grass clippings back into the lawn and shredded some of the fall leaves into dust; no fertilizers. This isn't enough soil amendment and the topsoil has disappeared from a lack of organic matter being added. I think much of America's soil suffers from the same problem. A reliance on the bags to grow a crop. Meanwhile the soil has reverted to raw clay or sand.

john mcginnis

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posted 2 years ago

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Loretta Liefveld wrote:

John Hutter wrote:

( I was amused by the fact that the rocky mountain Wheaton labs "clay" had enough sand/silt bits for me to make out lots of individual sand bits with my naked eye.... naw, that's sandy/silty AF based on where I am from!)

..... use the brick clay land to "cultivate" whichever weeds are going to thrive in it without you, in your climate. /quote]

haha!!! Love it! Yeah, I grow great weeds! I had no idea that the Oregon coast had so much clay! But then, you do say 'valley side', so not so close to the coast. Willamette Valley??

As the movie tag line says -- "Welcome to the party pal!" My land here in Texas is clay pot territory. I have found that putting down wood chips helps. Especially summers so the clay does not fry in the baking sun. The trees appreciate that. But most of our gardening is raised beds out of sheer necessity.

Meme grant

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posted 2 years ago

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We could not do straw bales here on the island of Santa Maria in the Azores islands. Not much straw.

There is no topsoil here, just red clay.

We mixed 1 part builders sand, 1 part compost and 1 part clay to make soil for our raized beds, works well.

For Asparagus we did half sand.

been growing here for 5 years.

Bryant RedHawk

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Location: Arkansas - Zone 7B/8A stoney, sandy loam soil pH 6.5

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Lila Stevens wrote:Would this work well with grass-hay bales, and if so, is there anything in the process you would do differently?

I did pick up 10 bales of wheat straw to start with, because I just happened to be near the only place in my area (an hour and a half away) that carries unsprayed straw. Since it is wheat straw, and I am near Austin, Texas, I am sure it was trucked in from some distance. It costs $8/ bale.

I buy organically-grown grass-hay for my goats for $8/ bale from about 45 minutes away. It's actually not much out of my way when I run errands in that direction a few times a month, so the drive is not much of an issue. It is grown and baled right there, and a by-product of them mowing their huge, organic pecan orchard. I can get non-feed-quality bales from the bottom layer of their storage barn for $6/ bale. The only thing that makes them non-feed-quality is that they've been in contact with the ground, insulating the other bales against moisture.

There are a lot of weed seeds in the hay bales, but there are a lot of wheat seeds in the straw bales too. I figure any seeds close enough to the edges to sprout, I can pull out easily and give to the chickens.

I'm thinking hay is going to be higher in nitrogen than straw, right? So perhaps might need less nitrogen added? Also, the hollow "straws" in the grass are thinner and there are lots of flat blades of grass and weed leaves, etc in there too, so maybe it would not work quite as well? I did check out the original straw bale gardening book from my library and read it before asking this question, but he never really explains why to use straw and not hay, unless I missed that part. But he does mention that the hollow structure of straw is what makes it work so well.

It is perfectly acceptable to substitute hay bales. You just treat them the same as straw.bales, the N hay contains can be thought of as negligible since it is dried, you still have to get the interior heating (decomposing). You might find that hay needs more watering at first and hay will decompose faster so you might need to replace yearly.

Redhawk

Ian Kris

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posted 2 years ago

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Our soil is clay sand. It stays wet in our Seattle climate, so things tend to rot instead of grow.
My fix is to plant above ground, but without the bales. I use rabbit fence, which is about 2 feet tall. A 10 foot section makes a 3 foot ring, approx. I fill the rings with brush and garden residue on bottom, then leaves, straw, grass hay.
Potatoes, bulbs, bareroot trees, banana roots go right in the leaves. I put in a top layer of potting soil for seeds and smaller things. This is kind of a mini hugelculture pile. Decomposition of lower layers adds warmth and nutrienrts, and holds moisture. In the fall I reload the rings with fresh leaves

Lila Stevens

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posted 2 years ago

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Bryant RedHawk wrote:

Lila Stevens wrote:Would this work well with grass-hay bales, and if so, is there anything in the process you would do differently?

I did pick up 10 bales of wheat straw to start with, because I just happened to be near the only place in my area (an hour and a half away) that carries unsprayed straw. Since it is wheat straw, and I am near Austin, Texas, I am sure it was trucked in from some distance. It costs $8/ bale.

I buy organically-grown grass-hay for my goats for $8/ bale from about 45 minutes away. It's actually not much out of my way when I run errands in that direction a few times a month, so the drive is not much of an issue. It is grown and baled right there, and a by-product of them mowing their huge, organic pecan orchard. I can get non-feed-quality bales from the bottom layer of their storage barn for $6/ bale. The only thing that makes them non-feed-quality is that they've been in contact with the ground, insulating the other bales against moisture.

There are a lot of weed seeds in the hay bales, but there are a lot of wheat seeds in the straw bales too. I figure any seeds close enough to the edges to sprout, I can pull out easily and give to the chickens.

I'm thinking hay is going to be higher in nitrogen than straw, right? So perhaps might need less nitrogen added? Also, the hollow "straws" in the grass are thinner and there are lots of flat blades of grass and weed leaves, etc in there too, so maybe it would not work quite as well? I did check out the original straw bale gardening book from my library and read it before asking this question, but he never really explains why to use straw and not hay, unless I missed that part. But he does mention that the hollow structure of straw is what makes it work so well.

It is perfectly acceptable to substitute hay bales. You just treat them the same as straw.bales, the N hay contains can be thought of as negligible since it is dried, you still have to get the interior heating (decomposing). You might find that hay needs more watering at first and hay will decompose faster so you might need to replace yearly.

Redhawk

Thank you! I'm going to give it a try

If nothing else, laying them out on contour will help slow the water rivulets that run down the land in heavy rains, and I'll get some good compost at the end of it.

Bryant RedHawk

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Ian Kris wrote: Our soil is clay sand. It stays wet in our Seattle climate, so things tend to rot instead of grow.
My fix is to plant above ground, but without the bales. I use rabbit fence, which is about 2 feet tall. A 10 foot section makes a 3 foot ring, approx. I fill the rings with brush and garden residue on bottom, then leaves, straw, grass hay.
Potatoes, bulbs, bareroot trees, banana roots go right in the leaves. I put in a top layer of potting soil for seeds and smaller things. This is kind of a mini hugelculture pile. Decomposition of lower layers adds warmth and nutrienrts, and holds moisture. In the fall I reload the rings with fresh leaves

That is a brilliant way to substitute materials to fit the conditions. The rain forest environment requires that sort of outside the box thinking. Kudos to you and thank you for sharing that method.

Redhawk

john mcginnis

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posted 2 years ago

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I posted to this thread, I think about what I did to some clay soil. There was a stretch on the property that was bare clay soil. Even the leaf drop would be swept away by the wind. Barren with a overstory of oak. That was 2 years ago. I laid down cardboard and a layer of wood chips. That first summer I saw some improvement in the trees and the leaf drop was captured by the scrabble nature of the wood chips. Mushrooms sprung up in the Fall.

Now I have a different problem. Trees! Or I should say small oak saplings coming thru the mulch layer in droves. The oaks are punching right thru the cardboard. The soil has been modified sufficiently that it has become a veritable nursery. I selected saplings that are at the tree line to extend the edge. The balance I have terminated with prejudice. In 2 years doing very little I have eliminated a small weed problem, protected the soil and received some free trees for my efforts. Not a bad return on my time.

Mary Cook

Posts: 273

Location: rural West Virginia

posted 1 year ago

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Okay, I'm in West Virginia, and have been gardening on a ridge, in clay soil, mostly using permanent semi-raised beds, for 14 years here. There is a gradient--the uppermost part of my clearing has a good bit of sand mixed with the soil, so I put the orchard there and then the main garden. Note that mt soil is not pottery-level for the most part, and tests usually say most nutrient levels are adequate to excessive--the only deficiency is sulfur (which I can buy as a powder). One of my objectives is to avoid dependence on outside inputs (which is why Cindy Conner's Grow a Sustainable Diet is my favorite gardening book). But I do find I need to import manure, and sand. These are easier for me to source than hay--especially if I were to demand organic hay. Some people believe it's bad to add sand to clay soil ("that's the formula for bricks") but others endorse it--for me the proof is simply in the pudding. My main garden (which was my first) is in fine shape now. Initially I put some sand into one small area, to grow carrots, I don't remember how well they did, what I remember is the next spring finding a patch of lovely fluffy soil, and thinking--oh, this is where I put the sand last year. So I've now added sand to all my beds. I work it in, along with whatever organic matter I can get my hands on--compost, manure, leaf mold. I know you're supposed to avoid tillage, but I find amending the texture of my soil--which is my issue, the chemical content is fine--requires working it in. I use a shovel and if the crop needs a fine seedbed I then work it over with my hands to get it smooth, break up the lumps. I try to plant cover crops in fall, but often the problem is that the crops are there till it frosts, which has been happening in November lately, and then it may be too late for even vetch, winter peas, maybe even rye. One flat garden patch we till with a tiller, the place we grow corn and sorghum.
I mulch with hay, most of which ends up in the soil; the problem is that hay is nearly always full of weed seeds, including the worst, grasses and clover. i never have ENOUGH hay to completely choke out the weeds it brings in. It helps to put a double layer of newspaper under the hay where the gaps between plants are big enough; in the flat patch I use cardboard, which is more effective and doesn't require a complete hay cover. I have to pull off tape and occasionally brads from the boxes (which come from furniture and appliance places in town).

Sarah Lennie

Posts: 18

Location: Ulster County, NY

posted 1 year ago

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I have a very basic question for the experienced folks in this thread- which end of the bales go down? Do you want the hay oriented as it was when growing, or laying on its side? I can see some logic to each orientation but was hoping someone with experience had a definitive opinion on the matter.

Mary Cook

Posts: 273

Location: rural West Virginia

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By the time the hay is in bales, it's totally lost any orientation it might once have had. I imagine with square bales you want the larger side down for more stability; round bales are presumably too big to use in this fashion.

Bonnie Kuhlman

pollinator

Posts: 172

Location: Zone 7a, AZ

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rectangular bales of clean, non-sprayed wheat straw

Thank you, Dr. RedHawk, for all of your work that you share. Several years and I am still gleaning knowledge from you.

Realizing we are in different states, do you have any advice on finding non-sprayed straw?

Bonnie

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