What would you do with 200 straw bales?

Well, I've ended up with 200 straw bales... quite the treat! I'm curious to know what you would do with such a surplus? I'm brainstorming ideas and would love to hear what everyone has to say!

One thing I have in mind is using the bales as walls for raised beds. I have a large space I want to use for gardening and I think creating a number of these beds could look really cool!

What would you do???

That's quite a haul! Do you need any buldings? We've got a whole forum discussing building with straw Maybe a shed or summer house?

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It just seems that with so many there may be a possibility in that respect.

Nancy Reading wrote:That's quite a haul! Do you need any buldings? We've got a whole forum discussing building with straw Maybe a shed or summer house?

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It just seems that with so many there may be a possibility in that respect.

Thanks for your reply! A great idea indeed, but not in the cards at this moment. I'd love to build a straw bale structure in the future... I have assisted with a number of them over the years and love their aesthetic and functionality.

For now, my focus is on my gardens and ways to maximize them with the straw as an input.

Another idea I am wrestling with, for instance, is to use effective microorganisms to break down the straw and help build soil for my raised beds.

I'd also be thinking of buildings!!
I live in a place where I can't get straw, just alfalfa hay, and I'm jealous.

Dr Redhawk had some delightful descriptions of planting in straw bales, I think I would have to try that in at least a dozen.

I don't want to be a downer, but are you sure there are no nasty chemicals on the straw that growies won't like?

I'd ask:
1. Straw from what grain? Some grains are sprayed with nasty stuff near harvest time to encourage it all to dry at the same time.
2. I believe straw is less likely to contain persistent broad leaf deterrent nastiness, but I got a batch of bad horse manure and the spot is still in quarantine 7 years later. If I can get organized, I'll do a seed test on it this year, but it's not got deer protection around it, so it's hard to tell if the soil is still bad if the deer harvest the plants before they can grow! Grass grows fine - the question is whether broad leaf plants will or not.

Once you've determined the straw is safe, using it as garden edging seems like a fine idea. Here on the Wet Coast, I read about a couple who wanted to garden, but the only spot that got sun was right by the ocean on some big rocks. At that time, it was easy to get bales of newspaper, so they used those bales to make raised beds, and filled them with seaweed - use what you can get!  Newspaper and straw are both extremely high carbon, so you're going to need lots of greens to balance that, or be growing crops where Fertilizer P can be used. If you sink a plant pot with holes in it into the soil by the straw bales and pour watered down pee in there, you won't have to worry about it splashing on things. That said, if the soil looks good, I wouldn't overdo it - things like tomatoes don't want too much Nitrogen or they won't fruit for example.

Good luck on your research and keep us posted!

As Jay indicated, the devil is in the details.   I would consider using them for raised beds in the garden.

You can plant directly into the straw bales, and keep them moist. They make a great grow medium.

The process will break them down naturally and you can spread the remaining mulch...

If you have animals in your part of the world and need a temporary shelter to keep the animals out of the cold and/or snow the straw bales make an excellent temporary shelter:

https://permies.com/t/182966/talk-hay-bales#1445532

All great ideas and points everyone!

I can confirm that the straw (made from barley) comes from a trusted source and is relatively clean of contaminants.

I am interested in straw bale gardening, ie planting directly into the bale itself. Maybe that will be a future project...

Does anyone have experience inoculating straw bales with effective microorganisms??? I want to try speeding up the decomposition of some of the bales to help build some soil for my beds.

You could try inoculating with wine cap spawn and place them in partial sun or dappled light beneath the trees, keeping them very moist...

https://www.fieldforest.net/product/wine-cap-stropharia-rugoso-annulata-sawdust-spawn/wine-cap-mushroom-spawn