Straw bale gardening is a fun way to vegetable garden. This post is part of a series on straw bale gardening following Joel Karsten’s book Straw Bale Gardens. We are letting you know how it works. Well, we just covered seeding your garden, now we are covering how to plant a potted plant in a straw bale garden. It is a pretty simple process, but there are a few tricks to show you.
Maybe you started seeds a month or two ago, or perhaps, like me, you are lazy and just went to the store to buy plants. Either way, you now have conditioned bales that are ready to plant. My biggest concern is that we are planting plants from one medium to another. I am a little concerned with the possibility that they won’t like the change, but Joel is pretty adamant that the bales are a great place for a plant to live.
Here’s a video I made demonstrating how to plant a potted plant in a straw bale garden:
I also gave directions on how to plant a potted plant in a straw bale garden here. I have some cabbages I just purchased. If you read the post about purchasing plants, you will notice these are in the four individual containers and they cost me about $1 each. In my opinion, totally worth it.
First, I simply made a hole in the straw like this:
Then to prevent the roots on the outsides of the pot, I “heal” them in using some potting mix to cover the straw.
Gently take the plant out of its container being careful not to damage any roots or the plant itself and place it in the hole.
I gently filled in around the roots with more potting soil. Look how happy this little cabbage looks.
Repeat this process for all other potted plants. You can even put them in the sides of the bale. Here are some pictures of me planting tarragon in the side of one of my straw bales.
