312. No more weeding! | Straw Bale Garden Club | Joel Karsten | Roseville, MN

https://www.strawbalegardenclub.com/[email protected]://www.facebook.com/learntogrowastrawbalegarden800-901-9902 • 651-470-2096​Minnesota, Roseville Minn- St PaulTell us a little about yourself.12 days straight. I'm 3/4 of the way through a paitn job.Roseville, MN between St. PaulTuesday March 24, 2020! The beginning of a crazy time! We are on spring break so I hope youare getting outdoors. HEre's Joel Karsten from stra balegardeningI'm in MinnnesotaI grew up in Southern Minnesota on a crop and dairy farmgrew up on a farmmoved to the city in collegeWas gonna go back to the farm but I met a girl, never made it back to the farmauthorwriterspeakergardenerinvolved in several community gardenstravel around esp. in the winter and spring speaking at home and garden shows here in the US and some in Europe as well about the straw bale garden method29 springsWhere do you want to start Pioniering this method, one thing my shuanbend who grew up on a ranch is there is a difference btwetn straw and hay.straw is what remains cereal grains are harvested like Wheats and oatmealbale up the stalksbedding for livestockhas hollow stalksstems are hollowhold airacts like insulationlivestock can lay on the bed of straw has this amazing path to suck up and hold on to moisturethat’s what makes it so good at holding on to large capacity moisture inside a bale which will hold 5 gallons of wateracts as a reservoir for urine forson or pitchfork in the manure spreader so it's like a diaper for livestockhay is food ~ Fodderif you say I’m feeding my dairy cows a hay bale that usually meansalfalfa cloverif your are feeding horses it could mean alfalfa or clover but it could be grass haybale up grass that has seed headsnutritional valuealfalfa has lots of proteins so it's a very valuable crop it's easy to growgrow it to bale it and feed it to livestocknot a byproduct of oats or wheatstraw is a by-proudctreasons you grow hay is to feed it to livestrockmore expensiveheavierhas a lot of protein in itprotein breaks down into thecould use a hay bale but it's more expensivebreaks down quickerdoesn't hold moisture as wellhay bale you only get one seasons of growthhe uses it mostly for mulch, he says you get weed seeds in the gardenthe ifdepends on when you cut the crop when you get to 3 times4 times2 timescut when you get to 1/10th flower so when one in ten plants has a flower with seeds are matureweeds that have mature seedshopefully not too many weedsif you are balling like grass hay usually it depends becuase if you cut it a couple of times a year the seed has won’t matureIf you don't cut it at all and you just cut it in the fall and bale your ditch grass, that could have all kinds of seeds in itsprouting standpointdependssometimes same with straw if you get a really good combine that gets all seeds off when harvesting but if you have a combine that is not adjusted right you can get a bale of straw that has lots of seeds in it toohappens early in the seasonprepping the bales getting to plantspray with a little vinegar and knock them back, then you don't have to deal with the weedsdelights of straw bale gardening is you don't have to deal with weedsHow does somebody...