what to do with straw after grass grows
Harbinger bale gardening can destroy your garden. A bold merits, but it's true. Here's what you demand to know to safeguard your harvest.
Harbinger Bale Gardening Has a Hidden Chance
Straw bale gardening can destroy your garden.
A assuming merits, but it's true. And the prove is mounting.
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Straw bale gardens take taken off over the final decade or and then. I've seen some really pretty and clever methods of harbinger bale gardening . Just a quick Google paradigm search will show you lots of beautiful straw bale gardens. It makes you desire to jump right in, doesn't it?
Are Straw Bales Condom to Use?
Unfortunately, straw bales (and hay bales) can destroy your garden for years. How? Let's have a expect.
Those of you that haven't read Compost Everything: The Proficient Guide to Extreme Composting may exist wondering why in the world I'd state that straw bale gardening can destroy your garden.
My friend Andi knows.
My friend Luzette knows as well, though her gardens were destroyed by manure, not direct via straw or hay.
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When I broke the story of toxic herbicides in manure back in August of 2012 via Natural Awakenings magazine, at that place were very few people that knew this stuff was around or how pervasive information technology really was. I wouldn't have known either . . . if it hadn't destroyed well-nigh $1000 worth of plants.
Since that first article, the stories keep mounting.
Toxic Herbicides Tin can Poisonous substance Gardens
I love the concept of harbinger bale gardening. It'southward peachy. It'southward a lot of fun and it'southward a quick way to become a garden going without worrying nearly improving the soil. You could consider straw bale gardening a form of composting and gardening simultaneously. The soil beneath a pile of rotten hay or straw improves marvelously after a year or and so, leaving a patch of humus-rich earthworm-populated earth.
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Yet if that hay or straw came from a field that was sprayed with one or more persistent herbicides such equally Grazon™ or CleanWave™, the vegetables in your harbinger bale gardens will exist wrecked. Not only that, you can't even compost the contaminated straw because the toxins (usually aminopyralid or its cousin clopyralid) stick around and will destroy whatever ends upward with the resulting compost.
Factory Farming's Downstream Consequences
The reality of mod factory farming is that it's farming based on poisons. Wheat, oats, barley and other grain fields, as well as hay fields, are oft sprayed with herbicides to command broad-foliage weeds long-term. "Weeds" similar blackberries, amaranth, etc.
The toxins don't consequence members of the grass family (grains included) merely they will destroy most garden vegetables quite efficiently. I've been thanked multiple times from people that have either saved their gardens from these poisons—or who had finally figured out what had wrecked their crops.
Many people are just discovering the dangers. Check out this Amazon review of Compost Everything :
Do You Know Where Your Harbinger Came From?
Around my neck of the wood many farmers have discovered the amazing power of these herbicides to control weeds in their hay fields. They're sprayed everywhere—it's incredible.
As the grains/grasses grow, they uptake these toxins without harm. Animals can also graze on the fields without apparent upshot.
Yet the resulting straw and manure still contains a strong dose of plant-killing power—and the toxins can stick around for years.
Toxic Pesticides in Beast Manure
I've been offered free manure for my gardens many times. I've even been told, "We don't spray anything on our fields." Yet if those animals are eating hay from the feed store—or if at that place'due south straw bedding in the stables—the chances of contamination are very high.
Just say no. You take to. Otherwise things similar I've pictured above happen to your plants.
Nasty.
Protect Your Harbinger Bale Garden from Hidden Pesticides
If you want to outset straw bale gardening, how will you know if the harbinger has been sprayed at some point? If you lot accept some rotten hay y'all want to compost, how will yous know if it contains mortiferous toxins or non?
Marjory recommends a uncomplicated test. (This test also works for manure.)
- Abound a flat of legumes .
- Mix the straw or hay with water in a v-gallon bucket and stir frequently for a day or 2.
- And so, employ the water on the legumes.
- Continue an centre on the legumes to see how they answer. If the second and third set of leaves look normal, the straw, hay, or manure is probably safe to use.
Note the give-and-take "probably" in that final bullet betoken. If you lot conduct this test with hay or harbinger of unknown origin, yous'll probably exist on safer footing. At that place's nonetheless a trivial risk, but information technology's better than using bales willy-nilly without knowing their complete provenance and without any sort of testing get-go. That is going to accident up in your face.
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You won't know, the feed shop won't know, and good luck tracing the harbinger bales back to a specific field so yous can ask the original farmer if he's sprayed annihilation inside the last couple of years.
The Bottom Line on Straw Bales and Manure
I used to sweep upwardly all the loose hay and straw every week or so from the local feed store after I got permission to scavenge it for my compost piles.
No more.
That'southward a game of Russian roulette you're going to lose.
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Verdict: Unless you tin can verify that the fields from which your straw or hay was harvested weren't sprayed inside the concluding three years or so with persistent herbicides, you're risking a lost gardening yr . . . or more!
There was a time when straw bale gardening was a not bad idea. That time has passed.
Be rubber.
What Exercise You Remember?
How exercise you ensure your straw bales are safe? What are your experiences with straw bale gardening? Let us know in the comments!
____________________
This is an updated version of an article that was originally published May 6, 2016.
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