Starting a vegetable garden can be a rewarding prospect for any homeowner. In addition to having fresh veggies on the ready, digging in the dirt has big health benefits. Though yanking out weeds might ...

Whether it's in a fruit patch or a vegetable bed, that golden straw from oats or wheat makes a really good mulch. It helps retain moisture in the soil, reduce disease, and suppress weeds in the garden ...

What Is Straw Bale Gardening? Straw bale gardening is an easy way to grow a raised vegetable garden without using any other kind of soil. Seeds are planted in bales that are treated with an organic ...

Straw bale gardens are becoming popular with growers plagued with poor soil or limited garden space, said University of Missouri Extension horticulturist David Trinklein. Straw bale gardening combines ...

Q: I would like to grow a vegetable garden but my home sits on dense rocky ground. My entire ground is primarily gold tailings between seven and 10 feet deep. My “soil” is not conducive to growing ...

You’ve all heard, “Hay is for horses.” Some people think that it is also great for growing plants. It isn’t. Technically, the bales to garden with are straw bales, such as wheat or barley, with little ...

Add productive garden space and raise your planting bed with straw bale gardening. This technique allows gardeners to create raised bed gardens on a patio, lawn or any area with poor compacted soil.

Nowadays people use the terms hay and straw interchangeably, and in most cases, it makes no difference whatsoever. For example, we say we were on a hayride at a get-together even though the wagons are ...

In the Spring Home and Garden section, which came out in April, I wrote a story about new gardening methods and products and mentioned straw bale gardening. As a gardener, the idea intrigued me, and I ...

One crop that has dropped in popularity in Elkhart County is wheat. Back in 1910, there were 34,877 acres of wheat grown in the county, or 17% of our farmland at that time. In 2017, the Census of ...

Mulching the vegetable and fruit garden is critical this time of year if you want to conserve water and not weed. In some cases, mulching a large area can be costly. Using rice straw is an effective, ...