What's growing on everyone? Kevin here from Epic Gardening.

Today we're talking about yet another gardening methodology that you may want to try.

And it's called Straw Bail Gardens.

Now if you haven't heard of this, I would be surprised because apparently this book has sold over a hundred thousand copies.

It is an absolute rock star in the gardening world and its author, Joel Carston, is really a proponent of this idea, this idea of straw bale gardening.

So if you couldn't already tell by the name, it involves taking a straw bale and planting directly into that straw bill after you've

conditioned it somewhat and then the straw bill acts as a raised bed.

But of course as you might imagine there are some differences between a classic raised bed garden and a

straw bale garden. Now what I'm going to do is go through a step by step process as to how you might

start your own straw bale garden so you can see if it's a method that you may want to try.

Of course the first thing you'll need to do is find straw bales. So it's best to source straw bales directly from farms. So if you have a local farm, then I would call them up and say,

hey, do you have straw bales that I could purchase from you?

Sometimes they'll even give them away.

But if you're going to do this, remember that straw is easiest to come by in the fall or winter.

It's going to be harder to find it in the spring and summer.

Now, you can of course just go buy them from garden centers.

The only reason you would want to source them from farms is because you can ask how that straw

was grown.

If there are pesticides, chemicals, herbicidesicides used you may want to skip out on that at a

garden center they're not going to know quite as much about that now the second step you

need to position your bales.

Wherever you lay your bales are is where your garden's going to be.

...