I purchased a couple books on straw bale gardening and I am intrigued but I have a question about a possible use for the technique. I own a property in Oregon that has really bad soil – a few inches of volcanic fluff on hardpan. The area I would like to work on is about 2 acres and I want to improve the quality of the soil. It seems to me that I could use the straw bale technique by layering the whole area with straw bales , conditioning them and growing a green manure cover crop with a focus on a deep tap root to break up the hardpan. Perhaps all well and good and even if that seems like a good approach I still wonder how to approach the second season. Most seem to
compost the bales after the season but I don’t want to move them. How about cutting down the cover crop growth in place and grow another cover crop to continue the soil improvement and composting in place for the straw bales? Does anyone
have any experience with this that can help?
I am also thinking about using the technique in my stand alone greenhouse but once again I’d like not to move the bales after use for the season. I’d like to treat them so I could use them for the next growth cycle.
Thanks, Ray