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Learn how to create an easy raised bed with straw bales

Placer County master gardeners offer free workshop on straw-bale gardening

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED FEB 28, 2024

This collection of sweet potato plants grew in straw bales at the Far Oaks Horticulture Center a few years back. Once the bales are spent at the end of the growing season, they make great compost material, too. Kathy Morrison

Think you have no space for a vegetable garden? Or is the sunny spot where you want to put a garden on top of rock-hard clay – or paved with concrete? Does your achy back keep you from gardening? Or the weeds?

Here’s one creative solution to all those gardening drawbacks – straw-bale gardening!

Learn how at a free in-person workshop, offered by the UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners of Placer County.

Set for 10:30 a.m. Saturday, March 9, at Loomis Library, “Turn Your Straw into Gold” will cover the basics of straw-bale gardening, which uses a bale of straw soaked in liquid organic fertilizer (such as compost tea) as an instant raised bed.

“Growing your veggies and flowers in easily 'conditioned' straw bales means no soil, no digging, no bending, only a trowel needed,” say the master gardeners.

Once the garden season is over, the straw can be recycled, too, they add. “Your used straw bales make great compost!”

As someone who has tried straw-bale gardening, I found it was a very productive method for difficult spots where nothing else seemed to grow. The bale was elevated enough where there was less bending to tend the plants, and weeds never had a chance to take hold. It was perfect for potatoes and sweet potatoes; when harvest time came, these root vegetables were easy to find.

Straw-bale gardening also works well for eggplants, squash, strawberries, beans, carrots and many other favorites.

No advance registration for this one-hour workshop is needed. Loomis Library is located at 6050 Library Drive, Loomis.

For details and directions: https://pcmg.ucanr.edu/.

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Keywords:

vegetables free class weekend event straw bale gardening Placeer County Loomis UCCE master gardeners March planting raised bed gardening Sacramento gardening

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Garden checklist for week of July 19

Remember to water early and deeply; your garden depends on you.

* It’s not too late to add a splash of color. Plant petunias, snapdragons, zinnias and marigolds.

* From seed, plant corn, pumpkins, radishes, winter squash and sunflowers.

* Keep your vegetable garden watered, mulched and weeded. Water before 8 a.m. to reduce the chance of fungal infection and to conserve moisture.

* Water, then fertilize vegetables and blooming annuals, perennials and shrubs to give them a boost.

*Fertilizing flowering plants every other week will extend their bloom. Give vegetable plants bone meal or other fertilizers high in phosphate to stimulate more blooms and fruiting.

* Don’t let tomatoes wilt or dry out completely. Give tomatoes a deep watering two to three times a week. Harvest vegetables promptly to encourage plants to produce more. Squash especially tends to grow rapidly in hot weather. Keep an eye on zucchini.

* If your melons and squash aren’t setting fruit, give the bees a hand. With a small, soft paintbrush, gather some pollen from male flowers, then brush it inside the female flowers, which have a tiny swelling at the base of their petals. (That's the embryo melon or squash.) Within days, that little swelling should start growing.

* Pinch back chrysanthemums for bushy plants and more flowers in September.

* Remove spent flowers from roses, daylilies and other bloomers as they finish flowering.

* Pinch off blooms from basil so the plant will grow more leaves. New leaves have the best flavor.

* Cut back lavender after flowering to promote a second bloom.

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