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Some notes on straw bale planting.
I let my straw bales sit in the chicken area for several months before moving them to the garden. This helps inoculate them with a lot of nitrogen and speed up breakdown.
I have found that direct sowing into these bales doesn't have a very high germination rate. I have no problem planting a seedling into the straw with it's root ball attached, but I think the water drains too well to help germinate a seed.
However I have learned that a light coat of compost on top helps to retain moisture and give seeds a chance. Some of the seeds I sowed directly into the bale started seeding after I laid out the compost and started watering it in.
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A straw bale that's been sitting outside in the elements and being played with by chickens ways a lot. They can also be a bit brittle. Usually I will try to just carry them to their new location, but if they feel like they might fall apart I'll get them loaded into a wheel barrel. Each bale can be used for at least one planting season, but I managed to get a second year out of some too. When they are done you can either toss them into your compost or spread them out. I'm also considering building a raised bed around a few and just leaving them to continue breaking down to build the bed up, and tossing new bales on top in the meantime.
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@thatguyoverthere Crab some wire mesh
and throw them in that
eg
yewtu.be/watch?v=R833pkaDBSY
eg
yewtu.be/watch?v=oZLJynp6jTI
eg
yewtu.be/watch?v=Zw8OhKmZJJ4&listen=false
eg
yewtu.be/watch?v=Tj_goluMKO8
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@charliebrownau I do this too. They can also be planted directly into for other crops if you keep them tied together. I buy them for other purposes but they get reused several times over before eventually just becoming more soil.
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@charliebrownau I like that first video's method of potato planting because it forces them to push out of the sides which seems like you might really be able to pack them in
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@charliebrownau my compost goes through this and then I let the chickens play with it for a few months while I build my next one. They search through it for bugs and seeds, shredding the material along the way. After that I let it sit a while longer so any seed they deposit can die off.
Their scratching at the heap tears it down so each day I have to shovel it back into a pile. This also helps keep it rotating which speeds up the breakdown further. It also gives me some exercise piling it back up each day. In the winter it provides a source of heat for them since it gets pretty hot inside. Usually in the winter months, I will have to crack it open for them in the morning but the inside is steamy.
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@charliebrownau this is the screened finished product. I then mix this with charcoal and other stuff to make potting soil or just put it over an area I am planting in
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@thatguyoverthere Sounds good
I was reading up how to make a bio gas desester
which sounds like a great way to replace retail/grid gas supply for cooking to offset tiny rocket stove
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@charliebrownau yeah I want to build one of those at some point too, although after a little research I did learn that they are less useful the further away you get from the equator without some kind of input for heat. In the summer they probably work great around here, but they might slow down too much in the winter. Only way to be sure is to try so eventually I still want to give it a go.
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@charliebrownau I wish you could compress methane, but the pressure requirements are pretty insane. Propane tanks aren't strong enough to contain it. I've seen large scale digesters that fill an expandable bladder with methane, but they take up an entire building haha
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@thatguyoverthere Could a average household of 1-3 people
generate that much methane to need a huge storage container for it
I found I generate too much scraps for the garden compost area
i was considering biogas as a method to offset the scraps
instead of landfill
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@charliebrownau as long as you get decent production year round there would be no real need to store it, but I have read they can slow down quite a bit in cooler periods so having some way to buffer lower output times with excess from higher output times would be ideal. You could always heat it to produce methane, but at that point you might as well just use wood gas (like the rocket stove).
I feed most of the scraps from the kitchen to our chickens. We also have a dog out there so anything I don't want her to get her jaws on goes in the compost bin. I also compost weeds, clippings, animal bedding and leaves. My property is canopied mostly with maple, but we also have a willow tree and a magnolia that crank out organic material year round.
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@charliebrownau and no I imagine if you were to devise a method of storage you wouldn't need a building size bladder, but I would imagine you do need something that can expand and contract with the gas to get a consistent flow rate.
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charliebrownau
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