Straw bale gardening book is certainly complete

By TIM KING The Land Correspondent

I’ve known about straw bale gardens for a number of years and have generally held a poor opinion of the idea. I admit my opinion was based mostly on ignorance and is grounded in 35 years of vegetable farming in the soil.

It was, therefore, surprising to me when the editor of The Land asked me to review Joel Karsten’s most recent edition of his highly popular book on the subject. This 2019 edition, published by Quarto, is called “Straw Bale Gardens Complete” and includes quite a bit of new information including a chapter on growing edible mushrooms on small bales.

I’ve read most of the book and I haven’t entirely changed my opinion about straw bale gardening - at least for my own purposes. I can report, however, that Karsten’s book is one of the most well written, highly organized, and thoughtful self-help gardening books I’ve ever read.

For example, my brother has experimented with straw bale gardening as a way to avoid disease in his tomatoes and eggplant. It’s worked for eggplant; but, he said, as the bales begin to decompose at the end of the summer the twine strings rot and the bales fall open.

“You’re left with plants at a fortyfive degree angle,” he said.

Karsten acknowledges that problem exists for those who use compostable twine string . . . and he has a fix for it.

My brother also pointed that at the end of the season straw bale gardeners are left with a pile of semi-decomposed straw to deal with. He has his bales in his larger garden so that’s not a problem. It is a problem for straw bale gardeners who have their bales in their manicured lawns or on their paved driveways.

Karsten has two responses to that. “Straw Bale Gardens Complete” has simple-to-follow instructions for building a compost bin for old straw and other