Agriculture Report - Straw Bale Gardening: Advice for Beginners

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Hay	Internet	Joel	Straw	a	ancient	and	animals	are	bale
bales	baling	days	find	gardening	grain	in	out	planting
prevent	soil	straw	the	to	weeks	wrote

bale gardening is a way to grow food above ground. Straw is what remains of plant stems after is harvested. The long, dry tubes are gathered into . Bales are often about a meter long and half meter high and wide. Straw is different from hay. is made from whole plants and used to feed . Straw is used mostly for animal bedding. Joel Karsten a book called "Straw Bale Gardens." He says this , and increasingly popular, idea is a form of container . He says using containers makes gardening easier by reducing need to pull weeds and deal with insect problems. Karsten says straw bales can require less water, and plant diseases caused by too much water in the . He says it is not possible to overwater a of straw because all the extra water just runs the bottom. In areas with polluted soil, growing food straw bales is easier than building above-ground containers for . Oats and wheat are the most commonly baled grains the United States. Rice straw is also good for and gardening. The straw bale becomes both the container the growing material. Preparing the bale takes about two . The first step is to add water and fertilizer the center of the bale every day for three . This begins the process of bacteria breaking down the into a growing medium. Once this happens, the bales ready for seeds or young plants. Some experts say seedlings is better than growing from seeds. You can plenty of information about straw bale gardening on the . For VOA Learning English, I'm Alex Villarreal

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