Other bales than straw bales

Hi all. I'm new here. Been container gardening for quite some time and the cost of building platforms with containers is getting a bit steep so I thought I'd expand into hay bale gardening to reduce the cost and labor a bit. Trouble is we don't seem to grow any grains in Florida so I can never find straw bales, just hay. But hay is way too expensive, especially this year due to a summer drought. So I thought I might try other things and ask if anyone has tried them out.

I know in the general article on this topic is says that pine needle bales won't work but they are readily available and I have a good drip irrigation system with a fertilizer injector so I thought to try those for things like strawberries and potatoes which like the acid. Maybe dig a hole in the bale and put in some potting soil as starter with fertilzer down in the bottom of the hole so it can drip on into the bale. Anyone try pine straw?

Alternately I was looking at plans for a home made box baler and thought I could probably modify it a tad to bale up some of the aged wood chip mulch available fairly cheap at the local wood resource recovery facility. Or even the free fresh cut chips that the local utility company will deliver by the truckload. Not sure if the bales would stay square but if they do is there any reason not to go that route?

Finally, how about bales of leaves? My neighbors are always setting out bags of them and if I build the baler I could bale up some nice leaf bales.

Any other ideas for other than hay or straw bales? Or any idea where to get hay bales cheap in north central Florida near Gainesville?

Thanks for any help on this set of newbie questions.

Dan,

Don't let anyone tell you it won't work. They may not have tried it. All I can say is try it, it might work. All of the above. Then again, all of the above would make a wonderful compost I would think. Along with some greenery, maybe a bag of manure. I am not sure how you would bale it, but it sounds like you have your ideas. So, certainly, I say to go ahead and try them. I would mix in some potting mix with almost any of what you are talking bout.

You just might have started a new way of gardening. Both hay and straw are getting terribly expensive no matter where you are. Pretty soon you might decide container gardening is the best way to go and return to it. I hope not.

But good luck and be sure to let us know how it goes, and definitely post pictures.

Jeanette

The leaf bales sound good, although you will want to be a little careful if you are trying to be organic. You will want to know what your neighbors put on the leaves.

Thanks for the encouragement Jnette. I'm still container gardening but I find that best for smaller things like kohlrabi, lettuce and radishes. For squash, tomatoes, etc. the containers start to get so big they need a lot of support and are hard to replenish at the end of each crop.

For pine needle bale gardening I was thinking to try just the ones commercially baled around here - but even those are $3.50 each for very small bales which can get expensive fast. But they should last a long time and I'm sure they will be great for strawberries. Pretty sure I'll start there and work on to the home-made bales of other stuff.

There are a few neat designs on the web for small "hay balers" as well as a few for baling things like plastic soda bottles for recycling which could be adapted. The one I'm looking at most favorably for wood chip mulch is the most simple - basically just a wooden box with a lid you compress down. You should be able to use either a car jack (with brace) or a small shop floor press to compress the material. Or just a big wooden lever. An alternate design just uses a 55 gallon drum and you compress the stuff into that. But of course it wouldn't be a square bale, not sure that would matter much. All the designs use twine to hold the bales together but for wood chips that probably wouldn't work so I'd probably have to line the container with hay net to get it all to stay together. More work but a more stable bale. Anyhow, it would surely work for compressing wood chips in a barrel and keeping them all together in a cylinder. That could be best since the cylindrical bales could be stood on end and the plants would be at waist level. Maybe need a slight wooden frame to prevent a them from tipping over, or tie them to a fence or something like that.

Probably could add manure and other organics to the chips also. I can get all the horse manure I can haul and the local starbucks lets me haul away about 40 gallons of coffee grounds a week. That ought to make the whole bale pretty much a big grow pellet! Too bad I'm not near the ocean or seaweed would go into it too. Most of that stuff I already use for compost but I can't use it well in the soil since the nematodes and fire ants around here make ground level gardening a big heartburn for me. As well as the weeds and my not-so-young-anymore back and bad leg. Anyhow, I rather like to build things as well as grow them. :-)

LOL, sounds like you're on your way. Keep us posted and we really want pictures. Especially we Northerners. It was the highest temperature here today that it has been in weeks and that was 18. So, you know we want pictures. Not just of plants. We want to see what you are doing to make the bales. etc.

Jeanette

Haven't made anything yet but here is a picture from one of the hay baler guides I've downloaded. This one is from ECHO in Fort Myers. The link to the full PDF is http://www.echotech.org/mambo/ then select ECHO Appropriate Technology from the left column then "Haybaler." I was planning to maybe use the same deal but with a 55 gallon drum instead of a box..

Do you rent them? I would hate to see you buy it before trying it. Very interesting tho.

Jeanette

I saw something interesting when getting my christmas tree - they shoved the tree through a circular net, that had nice wide holes, but still held the tree in shape so that it could be transported. I wonder if something like that could be used for your leaf bales?

Nope - you don't rent them, you build them. They are just wooden boxes with a big lever hooked to the lid. I have enough scrap lumber around to build twenty of them or more. Probably wouldn't take much time either but I'm so far behind on other projects right now it is probably going to be a month or so before I get to this one. Love all those projects!! Need to clone myself though.

That circular net sounded interesting if I use the 55 gallon drum as a base so I looked it up online. They have the funnel wrapping machine and all at http://www.holidaysalesinc.com/FrmBalers.htm . Something to keep in mind, though I don't think I want to spend $130 for a 520 foot roll until I know it works - even then that would add about $1.50 to each otherwise free bale so it would have to be a long lasting bale!

The big round hay bale netting isn't too expensive per foot, you just have to buy a huge roll of it. They have it at AgriSupply, the 48" by 6200 foot rolls go for only $160 - which would last me about three lifetimes and be very cheap per bale. Maybe I could also use it to wrap the peaches and plum trees to keep off the birds! Or wrap my entire lot in it! But I might be able to sweet talk the hay farmer I bought hay from last year to throw me a hundred feet or two rather than buy all that net! Haven't figured out a good way to tie it off though.

LOL, it doesn't take much to get your imagination running does it Dan? That's great. That's how things get done. Or undone.

Jeanette

Yep - my imagination keeps me VERY busy! Unfortunately unimaginative things like garden maintenance get sort of left behind. :-(

The great thing about how you folks live up north is you have an entire season (winter) where you can't garden and can dedicate your time to building stuff and getting tools all cleaned up. etc. Down here we garden and do yard maintenance all year long, 365 days a year. In fact, my typical quote about Florida is "The one great thing about Florida is you get to garden all year. And the one horrible thing about Florida is you've got to garden all year." But I wouldn't trade it for snow and cold no matter what. :-)

Dan

Yes, but it sure is nice to have a rest. And, you can't even imagine what it is like to see that first little green leaf or sprig of grass. It is like waking up in heaven.

Jeanette

You know - I forgot that I actually have an unlimited source of free hay/straw if I want to bale it myself. The local state park has a stable and they let me (indeed encourage me) to pick up all the stable cleanings I want for compost. Haven't picked up any in a while since it has some weed seeds in it and it is a bit dry for compost making and I now have another source of very cheap pre-made compost. But for bales the weed seeds in the stable cleanings might not make all that much difference. Anyhow, those cleanings usually includes a large amount of soiled straw along with some hay and wood shavings - and horse manure and urine of course. I bet I could bale that up and it would make super-duper bales, with incorporated free fertilizer pellets as well. Need to make that baler!

Bet you could sell them!! LOL

Jeanette