Straw Bale Cannabis Gardening !

[trichcycler]

So hopefully somebody has done this with cannabis?  I have not but will share how I successfully grow outdoor vegetables and herbs in cheap organic straw bales without ever plucking a weed or tilling the dirt.

 

first choose solid tight light golden bales, as opposed to brown ones. They should smell like fresh hay with no scent of mildew for best results. I'm sure there's a hundred different ways to do this. The way I do it works for me. The bale will need to be conditioned first for best results. Simply water the bale for a few days weeks, and start fertilizing it. I like adding a bit of soil to the open ended cut end tubes and sprinkling some beneficial fungi over that. I pipe holes in the bale and fill with organic fertilizer, or chicken poop, or rabbit poop, or all of the above. After a couple weeks you're ready to plant.

 

A correctly orientated bale will not show the twine on the top surface, and also will show the cut ends, not the folded ones of the straw(not hay). the cut ends assist in distributing water throughout. From the first day of watering decomp begins. I use a stab in thermometer to monitor the temps. They get hot, then peak, then level out=time to plant. The system performs better with the later season vegetables, tomatoes will need to be bushy types, or supported or they will split and shred the bales with roots. Sometimes two or more seasons can be harvested using the same bales if careful. Hard to do here with chickens and ducks, once the twine breaks down its fair game for scratching.

 

I Space plants the same as I would in dirt, and cut out a bit of straw about the size of a soccer ball with a knife and replace it with my planting soil mix and a plant. I water them with a soaker hose. After they're seasoned they are really difficult to move so be sure to put them where you want them to break down/burn. 

 

this is a superior experience to my dirt gardening follies outdoors. It looks tidy, has a positive impact on surroundings, and is easy to maintain.

 

Planting cannabis in one only just now occurred to me. Has anyone in the forum done this with or without cannabis ?

 

peace, out  

Edited August 4, 2015 by grassmatch