The Straw Bale Pallet Crate Garden – Simple, Attractive – And Cheap!.
Jim and Mary have done it again! A wonderful way to have a straw bale garden that also looks good. Not to mention the composting capabilities, frugality of the project and upcycling too.
Rabid Little Hippy 
Sort of what I plan to do with our food forest 🙂
Straw does make for an easy and cheap no dig starting point. 🙂
Yeah…my idea involves leaving it in it’s bales and placing 4 bales around the outside of the small tree to keep the soil moisture in the soil over summer. Direct planting into the bale will also give additional mulching protection as the bales decompose and vertical growing space. When I couple it with a bit of Ag Pipe in the root zone that I can cap and pour water into at weekly intervals when the weather is stinking hot, I think I might have a winner way to keep small trees alive over an extended dry season that won’t involve watering them daily (which AINT gonna happen 😉 ). We shall see…
I like! You could use the bales to build the bed with too, rather than just around the outside like ultra thick mulch. As in put down the straw and maybe tie it around once to prevent shifting, then fill up the middle with compost, ag pipe and the tree. You shouldn’t need to water too much either I would think as the straw, if you thoroughly soak it all initially, will wick in the moisture for ‘ron. Ooo I do like our comment brainstorming sessions. 😀
That’s the idea, we get our collective brainpower to form one colossal amazing permaculture brain… “One brain to rule them all!” Bags I get to be Sméagol… 😉
and it’s those sessions that first brought me to Serendipity . . . 😉
and I learn so much from them, too! You both give me lots to think about . . .
Stupid wordpress won’t let me answer your comment on your site about the Nearings so here goes…Cheers for that Linnie, I am going to head on over to our parochial little library site to see if they have even heard of the Nearings let alone stock books by them 😉 that’s for that comment and we are ALL learning here. That’s why we share our time, our energy and out efforts creating posts. We all want to learn from the collective pool and toss what we can back in for good measure. That’s what makes society “work” when people are willing to give a bit of themselves back to the collective mind 🙂