Planting Seeds and Seedlings in Your Straw Bale Garden

“Well, we just got back from the garden center. We picked up a whole variety of vegetable plants, bedding plants as well as seeds and also some flower seeds. Today we’re going to spend planting this 50 bale garden here in the beautiful St. Croix River Valley in Minnesota. It’s a little drizzly out today. So let’s get these plants into these bales.

Okay, so when it comes to figuring out what plants to put where it’s important to take a few things into consideration. We have a segment here that’s 14 feet long and this happens to be four bales in a row. If you’re going to plant tomatoes, for instance, and you’re planting big varieties; the hybrids that get really tall and really wide, you certainly don’t want to put two of those right next to each other, not because the roots are going to take up too much space, because the vine is going to take up too much space.

In this particular segment, we have a small variety tomato in this bale, and another small variety in this bale, so those two will work well together. Neither one of them is going to get too large. I also have a few plants we’re going to put in the sides of the bale.

This happens to be a Basil plant, we’re gonna plant those into the side of the bill. And we also have some strawberries and these will work well together in combination with these two bales with one tomato in each bale. I also have a tiny little pot here.

And these are Acorn Squash right at the end of this bale, we have an open space out here. We’re gonna let these acorns run out in this open space. So I’m going to punch one of these acorns right in towards the end of the bale. It’s not going to compete for trellis space up above this bale, because it’s going to make a big vinefield out to the side of the bale.

So it’s important to consider, what you’re planting and what its gonna end up doing when it’s mature. Is it gonna use lots of space on the trellis, or is it gonna stay pretty small? And kind of plan out a little bit, what’s gonna use a lot of space because you don’t want to put things too close together, if you are using two varieties that get really large. So keep those things in mind.

So let’s talk about how to plant bedding plants into our straw bales.

The first thing we’re going to do is either move our irrigation system if you aren’t already installed that. Just move it out of the way so that we can easily access the surface of the bales.

There’s a variety of tools you could use. Certainly a little hand spade like this would work great. This is a little more intense; make the hole a little bit easier, kind of a unique tool. Sometimes, cutting a hole in the straw is helpful if you have pruning shears, or even just a plain old pliers works well
to get some of the straw pulled out of the bales.

If you’d like to upgrade your planting, there are certainly people who use a bulb planter or something like this that attaches to a drill, and this works pretty well for getting a hole started inside the bales. This isn’t necessary, but if you do have lots of bales to play it certainly makes the process much easier.

To start out with, we’ve got some bedding plants here and some of these come in the biodegradable pots, what’s commonly referred to as peat pots. I don’t like peat pots. I like to take my pruning shears and cut the outside edges of this peat pot off and remove it. I really don’t like peat pots; it’s just harder for the vegetables to push their way through. So if you can just very gently and carefully remove the majority of that peat pot from around the bedding plant, it certainly is better.

Now this happens to be a tomato plant that we’re going to put in. And with tomatoes, you’ll note that wherever there’s a branch coming out of the tomato, if you snip that off with your pruning shears, that will turn into a root, if you bury that underground. So we’re gonna snip a few of these little branches off of our tomato, so we just leave sort of the top level of branches.

Now we’re gonna make a hole in the bale.
Just kind of squishing back and forth, these bales are loose enough that we’re able to make a hole fairly easily in the bale, and we’re going to shove this tomato plant right down into the bale.

Bury it so that just the top of the tomato is sticking out of the bale. Now right
around that, we’re gonna use a little potting mix we brought from the garden center. We’re going to put it around the edges. Just kind of squish it down inside there. Doesn’t have to be real tight, and you’re going to get your water and drizzle some water on the surface, wash those leaves off and seal up any exposed roots. Keep that bedding plant nice and moist.

So that’s the basics of how you get a bedding plant into the bale. It’s really pretty simple and straightforward. It’s not too complicated. Don’t make it more complicated than it really is. Won’t be long now, and we’ll have fresh tomatoes.

Okay, now we’re gonna talk about putting in seeds on top of our bales. If you’re seeding your bale, you just want to leave your irrigation system right in place. If it’s a soaker hose or the dripper style system like we have, just leave it right in place. You’re going to use your potting mix and cover that irrigation hose right up with potting mix. You’re gonna smooth this out over the top of the bale.

We’re making a seed bed here essentially, so that the seeds will have moisture next to them until they’re able to germinate. It’s real simple to sort of spread this out, flatten it out a little bit and I like to take a seed tray that I got from the garden center, just make a little stamp right in the top of these bales. It makes a nice pattern, particularly. I’m planting beans here, and this is about the right seed spacing for beans.

So when it comes to planting depth, the back of the seed pack will tell you how deep they recommend you plant each seed. But really, once you get your potting mix in place, just put the seeds in about the middle of that depth of potting mix and cover them up. You certainly don’t want them exposed on the surface, but you also don’t have to plant, all the way through the potting mix. If you plant right in the middle of it, the potting mix does a nice job of holding moisture next to that seed until it’s able to germinate.

You’ll notice as soon as it germinates, those little roots will head right towards the middle of that bale where it’s nice and warm.

So I can take a bean seed and just very simply push it down inside that potting mix. Smooth it off. This way I can tell exactly where I’ve planted one. Now I’m going to come back in a few minutes, and I’m going to water this in, so that the seed has moisture next to it. And that’s really all there is to it. In a few days, these will all germinate and we’re gonna have our wires installed above here, the beans will then climb up on that trellis system up above it. You’ll see it’s gonna fill this whole area up above here, with lots of great green beans.

So these are Beauregard sweet potatoes. we’re gonna plant into this bale. This is really very simple. This is a little nine pack of pre-started slips. We’re just gonna yank one of those out and literally, we don’t even need to make a hole. Just gonna shove a hole with our hands. We want to plant them deep enough so that the bottom leaves are just level with the surface of the bale. You don’t need to put any potting mix or anything around them, and you’re gonna see this vine’s gonna come out and spread all over the place, around the edges of this bale. But that’s how you do sweet potatoes. It’s pretty simple, and you’re gonna love the sweet potatoes you get out of these bales.

When it comes to strawberries. I like to put about three of them in the side of a bale. It kind of depends on the variety. This variety happens to be Lorans. These are everbearing strawberries. If you plant June bearers, you’re probably gonna have to wait for the second season to get much production out of your strawberries, but these are everbearers, so they should start producing right away this first year.

In order to plant them, I like to put them right along the top edge of the bale. You want to keep the root about 2, 3, 4 inches deep down inside the bale, and just let the top leaves stick out the side. We want to keep that root near our irrigation system, so we make sure we get plenty of water. You can see little tiny buds already starting to form on these strawberries, so it won’t be long and we’ll be picking strawberries out of these bales.

This is another one of those peat pots. We’re going to get rid of the peat pot.
These are seedlings for acorn squash. We’re going to put these acorn squash right at the end of a bale, where we have open space; an open field out to the side. I like to remove these, these peat pots.

You’ll notice I have two seedlings here, so I can actually split this in half and I can plant the other half somewhere else. And all I gonna do is sort of point it in the right direction. When this squash starts to produce vine, we’re going to train those vines out in that direction, out towards the side of the bale. Just tuck this down inside there, and if you need to, just use a little bit of planting mix around it to tuck it in. And then water it in well, and just stand back. You’re gonna have a great big vine field, that’s going to spread out hopefully in this direction, out next to the bale. Okay, so we’ve got a few bedding plants already in this bale.

I have a few strawberries. On the end, we have a acorn squash, a tomato here in the middle. This is an heirloom variety tomato, so it’s a little smaller. And then on this side of the bale we have some basil planted.

But even though you have some bedding plants in, think also about possibly putting a few seeds in. Now I have a pack of pea seeds here. Peas don’t take very much room, and they’re pretty quick to harvest. The seed pack says 70 days till maturity, but I think you’ll find with a straw bale, they’re going to be a little quicker than that, because the bale’s nice and warm. So we’re just going to pick out a couple of handfuls of potting mix right on top of this bale, right in between some of our other bedding plants. Then we’re gonna pack down this potting mix. We’re going to just put a few pea seeds right in this potting mix; just four or five.

Every time I go to the garden, I like to play four or five peas, simply because that way you have fresh peas and the maturity is sort of spread out over a few weeks or a few months, instead of having all your peas ripe the same day or two. It makes shucking peas pretty boring if you have to do a whole bunch of them over a couple of days, and I really like the concept of having fresh peas on a regular basis throughout the summer. So pop a few in, here and there, wherever you’ve got a little spot.

Don’t be afraid, you don’t have to plant the whole top of the bale, with one seed variety. You can put a few in here and a few in there, wherever you have a little open space.

We picked up some nine packs of real small seedlings. These happened to be kale seedlings. You can certainly start kale from seed as well. But if you want early kale, start with pre started little shoots like this. These are pretty tender. They’re not real well-rooted yet at this point, so be real careful as you pull them out. Sometimes it works well to squeeze that six pack on the bottom, and then just sort of slide that seedling right out like this.

When we go to plant them, I like to put these also right above the string of the bale, right in that top edge of the bale. And you’ll see that kale will grow out sideways, from the edge of the bale, and you’ll have kale plants that’ll come way out here. From early season, until your hard frost, kale does really well all season long. And kale’s a real popular vegetable now. Lots of great kale recipes out there for you as well. So good luck with your kale.

Now depending on the farmer you got your bales from, sometimes bales can be really tight, tightly compressed, and therefore it can be hard to make a hole to put your plants down in. People come up with all kinds of crazy ways to make a hole in a bale, but I’ll tell you what I’ve found is easiest, is just a simple plain old pliers. You can use the pliers and just reach down in that tight bale, grab a little straw and yank it out.
If you pull out a couple plier-fulls of straw, you’ll see it makes it real easy to get your bedding plant down inside there.

Once you get a hole started, you see your bedding plant slips right down in that bale, real easily. Here we have a pepper plant. We’re gonna put a little bit of potting mix back around that root, just to seal it up, water it in, and away we go.”