anyone ever grow in straw bails

i found a great spot. very hidden, dry land in a swamp. i found a safe way to get out to it. prob is its very bad clay. hard as a rock i tried digging. i just getting ideas ready for next yr. has anyone ever tried straw bails. in the winter this place is very easy to get to i was thinking of taking them across the ice on a sled. digging in a few feet this summer. and come winter putting two bails of straw in the holes. ill add fertilizer come spring.. i figure i gotta dig them in to keep them from drying out to much. or run some kind of drip.

hmm ...intersting thought - If you kinda dug the center out for a grow medium - you could probally put em out a little ealier than everyone else - those bails will throw off heat ... but that could be a problem in the summer if they put off too much . I dunno - good thought ... im kinda curious to see if anyone has ever tried this

y not just fill up the holes with good soil? im just not seeing what the advantages would be other than the cost would be cheaper. id do yourself a favor and just pick up some bags of good soil.

it would take truck loads of soil. or 15 to 20 bails i can haul out in one shoot with my snowmobile. plus in 2 yrs when the bails break down it will help the spot greatly. also heat is a prob but only for the first few weeks with straw. hay or alapah would be longer thats why im going to put them out early in winter.

also never put your plants out before natural plants start growing thats when the deer get them. gotta wait tell the forest green up.

well if heat is a problem just put straw over the tops of the holes... i dont know it may work just seems a lil off the wall. i figure if it worked good a bunch of people would be doing it and ive never heard of anyone doing that. how many holes were u planning on digging? cuz u could haul bags of soil with ur snowmobile just the same no?

i think it would be just as easy to do soil on the snowmobile

no it wouldnt. it not even close straw weight is a eight of the weight of a bag of soil. id never pull a sled full of soil out in the snow. not about to take 10 trips. and as for heat. im not talking about summer sun. im talking about heat from decomp. i didnt come up with this idea myself. im just looking for someone who has done it. for any tips iv already googeled it. peopel grow veg all the time like this. just not marijuana.

i use black gold garden compost and its nowhere near 8 times the weight of straw, i know this cuz i use straw as well. a bail of straw probably weighs about the same as 4 cubic feet of the black gold compost. but have fun in ur search for someone who has done it, dont think u will have much luck here. everyone here seems to use soil for a reason, cuz it works the best. u could also go get some promix which is just peat moss, which when dry is fairly light.

I'm on board ... I say try it ... your right about the few years thing ... it make a wonder natural compost in time . Never give up on an idea because you get a few nasayers . I could say I'm gonna try to grow mj from a seed in soil and some dumbass somewhere would tell me that It would never work and provide at least three reasons why..... give it a shot and see ..... only way you will ever know for sure .....

ok lets try again. the soil is heavy clay. i can dig a foot or 2 and then its so packed its like rock. this isnt my first grow. i would need alot of black gold to cut the soil. im not about to dig a hole and make a bowl. so my plants can drown. iv seen plenty of people grow vegatabels in straw bales. i want to know if anyone tried pot. and if they have any advise. if it sounds stupid then please keep moving to the next post. i know my options and im sure soil is best. but im not going to spend even on cheap black gold. the amount of money ill spend on straw bails and fertilizer. plus next season my bails will compost and ready for anther grow. im a farmer i know how much straw costs and how much black gold cost. i also have a scale that weighs cows. and when i fill the back of my pick up with black gold. it wieghs 5600lbs and when i fill it with straw well over the top of the cab. and a bale wider then the bed. it weighs 5134. 3 times the area. know i f i dry the soil. witch i believe it kills the beneficial bactera if you do. that's my opinion not fact. then maybe your right. im looking to cover as much space as possible with as little cost and turn a profit not work 3000 hrs and make 5000k .in and out done. 10 hrs tops.

I think I have a couple of suggestions that may help, but that 10 hours tops thing is not going to happen by a long shot.

First of all I really like this idea, letting nature do the work and you sit back and kick it(for the most part). I think you should break the straw bales up into halves or quarters as well as fluffing some up and making a nice hearty bedding ontop of the whole, this will help kickstart the decomposition, and the smaller sections of straw will breakdown faster. Also to help aid in this breaking down process it would be worth your while to make an effort to bring in, even if its only 5 percent of your sleds load, some good ole compost. Mixed in with the hay, it will jumpstart your pile as well as offer a nice base.

Finally I believe this is the most important step, but by the sounds of how much effort you want to put in, you may not want to do it at all. Make a actively aerated compost and alfalfa tea and dump it on your holes at least once, the more often the better. The tea's 2 components will both help get a rich soil and offer a very fast breakdown time for the straw so that your more likely to have these holes ready by next season. The compost offers an extremely diverse population of bactera and fungi which are natures composters, your just basically multiplying, concentrating and then applying them. The other part of the tea, alfalfa offers a water soluble form of nitrogen which is the driving force behind all of this bacteria and fungi work. The more nitrogen they have the faster and better they will be able to do their job, aka breaking down your straw.

Just thought I'd throw out what I'd do if i were in your situation. Good luck and I really do credit you for thinking outside the box on this one

i thank you. i wasnt going to break them up. veg growers just cut a nice hole in the middel and fill with compost. add 10-10-10 and let it grow. i wasnt even thinking alapha tea. i was thinking fish tho maybe. i also was going to let them tied up not to worried about the straw breaking down its gotnpk of 0 0.2 0.5. its all carbon. im going to half to add fertilizer. since i have plenty of water i think im going to put a pump to a barrel have it fill at nite on a timer then to a soaker hose right down my row of bails. i was think of going 2 bails wide with compost in the middel between them. about 6 to 10 inches. this wil give me plenty of room for the roots. i was thinking tting a difernt kind of bail also. maybe hay. but that gets hot and stays hot for a few weeks and alpha bail even longer. bail lossen up as soon as they cool off. but maybe ill mix them to im kind of up in the air about how im going to do it yet. i always add bone meal.

theres tons of catail and grass but you cant get ear the water or you sink up to your ears. no one goes in this area for this reason. i havnt been up there since im a kid. i took a trip a few weeks ago. i had fort there. still had all my old toys and shit there. no one has touched them in yrs. kicked or moved at all. theres only one way in a few logs and rock. my grandfather showed me to carry a long stick not for balance but if i fall in place across the mud to pull myself out. and stop me from sinking. just a giant bog. im alittel worried about tring the fish or alapha. there are bears and i dont want them tearing my bails and plants up because they smell fish or rooting alapha.