For about $5 to $10 you can pick up a bale of straw at your local hardware store or nursery. That means you can have a lot of fun without threshing your wallet. Once your bale has served its purpose, ...

My sister Laura and Grandma Josephine tending the chickens on the family farm. Yes, that is a little genuine Minnesota straw in the foreground. Because the straw bale generates heat as the straw ...

Add productive garden space and raise your planting bed with straw bale gardening. This technique allows gardeners to create raised bed gardens on a patio, lawn or any area with poor compacted soil.

There are many ways to plant a garden. In-ground, raised beds, containers, there are choices that work for everyone. One unique type of gardening boasts many benefits and is easy to start and maintain ...

Peppers, tomatoes and cabbage getting started, soon after being planted in straw bales. Growing vegetables out of straw bales is a hot topic lately after a web-site and Facebook frenzy led to a book ...

Local gardeners are experimenting with straw bales, taking advantage of the internal composting to help their garden grow. As a little boy growing up on a Minnesota farm, Joel Karsten wondered why the ...

In this publicity photo provided by Cool Springs Press, Minnesota author and gardener, Joel Karsten, picks tomatoes from his straw bale garden. Karsten is the leading evangelist of a straw-bale ...

Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to print (Opens in new window) Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Click to ...