Straw bale gardening can destroy your garden.
A bold claim, but it’s true. And the evidence is mounting.
Straw bale gardens have taken off over the last decade or so. I’ve seen some really pretty and clever methods of straw bale gardening. Just a quick Google Image Search will show you lots of beautiful straw bale gardens –
Oh, wait! Joel Karsten stopped in to say I can’t use a screencap from a Google Image Search for straw bale gardens to illustrate my point:
He makes you want to jump right in, doesn’t he? Great writer, too.
Unfortunately, straw bales (and hay bales) can DESTROY your garden for years. How? Let’s take a look.
The Hidden Danger of Straw Bale Gardening
Those of you that haven’t read Compost Everything: The Good Guide to Extreme Composting may be wondering why in the world I’d state that straw bale gardening can destroy your garden.
My friend Andi knows.
My friend Luzette knows as well, though her gardens were destroyed by manure, not directly via straw or hay.
When I broke the story of toxic herbicides in manure back in August of 2012 via Natural Awakenings magazine, there were very few people that knew this stuff was around or how pervasive it really was. I wouldn’t have known either… if it hadn’t destroyed about $1000 worth of plants.
Since that first article, the stories keep mounting.
I love the concept of straw bale gardening. It’s great. It’s a lot of fun and it’s a quick way to get a garden going without worrying about improving the soil. You could consider straw bale gardening a form of composting and gardening simultaneously. The soil beneath a pile of rotten hay or straw improves marvelously after a year or so, leaving a patch of humus-rich earthworm-populated earth.
Yet if that hay or straw came from a field that was sprayed with one or more persistent herbicides such as Grazon(TM) or CleanWave(TM), the vegetables in your straw bale gardens will be wrecked. Not only that, you can’t even compost the contaminated straw because the toxins (usually aminopyralid or its cousin clopyralid) stick around and will destroy whatever ends up with the resulting compost.
The reality of modern factory farming is that it’s farming based on poisons. Wheat, oats, barley and other grain fields, as well as hay fields, are often sprayed with herbicides to control broad-leaf weeds long-term. “Weeds” like blackberries, amaranth, etc. The toxins don’t effect members of the grass family (grains included) but they will destroy most garden vegetables quite efficiently. I’ve been thanked multiple times from people that have either saved their gardens from these poisons – or who had finally figured out what had wrecked their crops.
Around my neck of the woods many farmers have discovered the amazing power of these herbicides to control weeds in their hay fields. They’re sprayed everywhere – it’s incredible.
As the grains/grasses grow, they uptake these toxins without harm. Animals can also graze on the fields without apparent issue.
Yet the resulting straw and manure still contains a potent dose of plant-killing power – and the toxins can stick around for years.
I’ve been offered free manure for my gardens many times. I’ve even been told “We don’t spray anything on our fields.” Yet if those animals are eating hay from the feed store – or if there’s straw bedding in the stables – the chances of contamination are very high.
Just say no. You have to. Otherwise things like this happen to your plants:
Nasty.
If you want to start straw bale gardening, how will you know if the straw has been sprayed at some point? If you have some rotten hay you want to compost, how will you know if it contains deadly toxins or not?
Eventually, it’s going to blow up in your face.
You won’t know, the feed store won’t know, and good luck tracing the straw bales back to a specific field so you can ask the original farmer if he’s sprayed anything within the last couple of years.
I used to sweep up all the loose hay and straw every week or so from the local feed store after I got permission to scavenge it for my compost piles.
No more.
That’s a game of Russian roulette you’re going to lose.
Verdict:
Unless you can verify that the fields from which your straw or hay was harvested weren’t sprayed within the last three years or so with persistent herbicides, you’re risking a lost gardening year… or more!
There was a time when straw bale gardening was a great idea. That time has passed.
Be safe.
59 responses to “The Hidden Danger of Straw Bale Gardening No One is Mentioning”
But David, “You can’t make hay without chemicals”.
Thank you for getting that info out there for us. You certainly saved my forest from this.
Scrubland
HA
Oh, please. Don’t use composted manure if the horse possibly ate treated hay or has straw in its stable?!! Your ridiculous. What if I fed them commercial bought horse treats? Will that taint my herb garden or pickles? Bahaha! Extremism at it’s finest folks. Get a grip. Bet that cotton shirt you own was from chemically treated cotton crops! Don’t forget that wool sweater! I bet they wormed amd vaccinated their sheep! CAREFUL!! YOU COULD BE CONTAMINATED!
You’re too short for this ride, Cody.
I had a bunch of stuff knocked out due to aminopyralid contamination, plus talked with multiple other people who lost their plants. This isn’t “you might get cancer some day if you smoke cigars,” this is serious. Your garden will die quickly if this stuff is in hay or straw. And it’s all over the place.
I once used composted horse manure from the local race track stables.they must have been treated with a vermicide,because it killed all worms on the patch it was placed, this is an issue.not extremist babble at all.we should learn from others experience
If you don’t get my images off of your click bate, false information, total bs page, I WILL sue you. Don’t believe me? Just do nothing and wait to see if I’m serious. Get my copyright protected images off of your trash website NOW David the thief!
I’m assuming you’re talking about the google image search page I screencapped.
You might want to sue google, but I’ll take it down. I’ll replace it with your quote instead.
Ok boomer
SHAME ON YOU for not wanting people to get TRUE INFO that could seriously effect them in many ways from health to financial. David is just telling people what NOT TO DO when using YOUR methods. I was planning to buy your Bale Buster and find my own ORGANIC straw to use….but after reading your comment on here , I’ll just do it the long way and use bone meal…save myself some money!
Very true, many people don’t realize that.
I’m using free hay from a chemically happy neighbor without any visible bad effects but it goes through a long metamorphosis cycle first – he cuts the hay and it sits in his field for a year – he gives the rotting hay to me – I use it as a bedding for sheep and chickens, so it stays on the barn floor for another year – I clean the barn and it sits in a pile for another couple of years – I use stuff from the pile as potting soil. So, 4 years is probably safe but then again – I don’t grow potatoes and other stuff sensitive to aminopyralid.
A long, long time will render it safe, though it breaks down faster when in contact with soil microorganisms than it does sitting. Repeatedly tilling under the infected material over the course of a few years is supposed to be the best form of toxicity abatement.
Repeated tilling by sheep and chickens with them peeing and pooping on you every 15 minutes – that’ll learn you, evil aminopyralid :) Seriously though – I’m just sharing my experience, I’m not saying people should expect to get the same results because they probably won’t – too many variables. If you guys want to experiment, try it on a tiny expendable bed first – that stuff is super-nasty. Even I don’t use it on edible annuals.
Hehheh
Shoot!! I have been meaning to try this for a couple of years now. What about what we put around the mooring trees and chaya? I guess the best thing is to remove it in the spring compact it in a different location.
Thanks I would have never thought of this as a problem.
I quit using straw around the moringas and other tender tropicals and now use fallen leaves instead. I should probably update my articles with a link to this one.
And you’re very welcome. I hate to see people’s plants get wrecked.
Isn’t there a law now, something to the effect that hay destined to be sold can’t be treated with Grazon?
If there is, I haven’t heard about it.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0ahUKEwjLus-bjabKAhVM4SYKHW9aAjkQFggoMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcontent.ces.ncsu.edu%2Fherbicide-carryover&usg=AFQjCNHSdZRdJ_mJ2uASz0t0UQlBU8ry_Q&sig2=5k8lcunzA2rBpLjifl8G5Q&cad=rja
Wow, that’s a really long link, to a pdf file from a North Carolina University article on this problem. They advise testing soil or manure by planting peas (which are very sensitive to these herbicides) in test plots. If the peas grow, most anything else would be fine.
Thanks for the link. I’ve used tomato transplants and beans the same way. The problem is, you don’t really know which hay might have more or less or be more or less broken down. For example, when I got the evil manure and unwittingly put it in my gardens, I had plants that would show symptoms in some areas, and other areas that were clear. The best method is complete avoidance.
David, I ask this because I have a HUGE pile of hay from my two donkeys, 3 goats, 30 plus chickens and more quail… I have pondered the 18 month window of Grazon etc, and wondered if you established a crop rotation based on it, using the compost in Corn and other tolerant plants, adding ash and then testing to make sure your broad leaf crops are not effected by it? I am unsure what the heck I can do with my huge pile of hay and manure…and looking for some ideas to use it. I have also just contemplated spreading it over my pastures and just buying compost..but we have huge gardens, and that becomes expensive.
That’s a conundrum. Yes, you could use it for corn. One of my ruined beds was converted to corn and it grew fine; however, then the corn stalks contain the toxin, meaning I couldn’t use them in my compost pile and instead had to throw them in a corner of the yard.
If it’s sitting and composting, it may persist longer than 18 months. If tilled into the ground, it’s supposed to break down within a couple of years.
I would feed your gardens via the 55gallon drum method I describe in my book Compost Everything. Just throw in a few shovelfuls of safe manure/compost (I also add a couple of cups of Epsom salts and sometimes fish emulsion or whatever I have laying around) and top off with water, then let that sit for a few days to steep, stir it up, and water large gardens with it. Really cheap and the plants appreciate it. Even bought-in compost can contain nasty contaminants.
Wish I had a better answer.
Is there anything potentially bad for gardens sprayed on alfalfa? It is a legume rather than a grass. I ask because I have horses (aka compost machines) and they eat alfalfa and pasture grass. Never had a problem with their manure ruining my garden.
I trust alfalfa. It may be sprayed, but I know it wouldn’t be sprayed with anything that would kill the garden, i.e. a broad-leaf killing herbicide like that sprayed on grasses.
I am going to start looking at alfalfa hay…its 385 a ton for 3 x 8 bales in J’ville. Worth the trouble to haul it, we use 2-3 bales of coastal a week and have been working on a storage area to go to rounds, may as well go this route.
If it wasn’t for a Backwoods Home article you wrote, we would have spread compost into a 90′ x 40′ garden this year.
My goodness – thank God you didn’t do that. The toxins are so pervasive now the chances are high it would have been a disaster. I’m very glad you saw my article and decided to stop by here and comment.
385 for a ton isn’t bad at all.
Good to know! Are these herbicides used on Timothy hay?
Yes, unfortunately. All hay and straw are potentially sprayed at this point.
Bs it is illegal off label use to use clopyralids on hay or straw that gets baled. Actually a criminal offense, read the label genius! Farmer’s are not stupid, they don’t want to go to jail. You would be very hard pressed to ever find this happening anywhere, you are just trying to scare people you ass. You have no background or education in chemistry or plant physiology OBVIOUSLY, but you do have skills in building click bate websites to sell advertising to the unsuspecting innocents who visit this bs website.
Hi Joel.
I don’t have any money tied up in the straw bale gardening concept. You shouldn’t have attacked me like a rabid dog over at The Grow Network – that’s not the way to win people over. Heck, I would have been happy to interview you and learn more. I’ve learned from plenty of people in the past.
I also notice you have no problem plugging your book with The Grow Network even after you slammed them as clickbait, etc.
You owe me an apology. I originally wrote this article based on my own experience and that of other gardeners. You somehow took it as an attack on you, and slammed me. I won’t stop until you apologize – and any time someone looks up straw bale gardening or Joel Karsten, they’ll see in your own words just what a spiteful person you are.
I feel like I need to chime in here after reading Joel’s very floral(?) commentary above. I am currently dealing with some sort of herbicide leaching out from bales purchased at our local plant nursery. Whether it’s picloram, clopyralid, or aminopyralid, I do not know, but as soon as we transplanted our tomatoes and peppers to the prepared bales, their growth became stunted and any new leaves that formed curled in on themselves. We took photos into the garden center where they confirmed that we were seeing telltale signs of an herbicide. They also dug a little deeper and found out that the farm they bought the bales from does indeed spray their fields (again, not sure what with). Thanks for sharing your experience, David. I do wish we would have considered this before planting our well-loved starts and exposing our curious, puts-everything-in-her-mouth, 16-month old daughter. Time to move the bales on out and start over. Luckily, it was our first time experimenting with straw bales so we didn’t put all of our eggs in one basket!
Thank you.
Isn’t alfalfa genetically modified to resist Glyphosate? The longer they use Glyphosate the more they have to spray to control weeds. Prior to harvest they spray with an other herbicide to consistently kill the field for easy harvest at a preselected time. Unless you grow it your self it’s no doubt chemically ladened, thats my rule.
Alfalfa can be GMO to be sprayed with glycophosphate.
Yes, though that’s less likely to cause issues compared to Grazon, so it’s definitely a lesser evil.
There are a few certified organic hay producers in Florida. There are also a few producers of perennial peanut hay that don’t spray with herbicides or pesticides but are not certified organic. I don’t know if they are using chemical fertilizers. Many horse owners are spraying their fields with Grazon because of the problem with creeping indigo with is very toxic to horses. So, do be very careful using horse manure even if they are not getting supplemental hay.
> because of the problem with creeping indigo with is very toxic to horses.
Are there any wild plants in North America that are NOT toxic to horses? :) Looking at all the stuff my neighbors do to keep their horses alive I can not but wonder about John Wayne’s horses – how on Earth they were able to survive without hay shipments from Georgia, tons of medicines, cold weather clothes, weekly vet visit, etc. ? :)) How come dumb sheep and cows know what not to eat but the horses need a sprayer full of Grazon to survive? I hope someone will breed some horses that are not just toys soon :)
Leon
P.S. Hi Jean – funny to run into you here. Just pulling your leg, of course :)
P.P.S. Just saw the article about you in TBN (there was a link in AWA newsletter) – congratulations, great write up! Actually, I think that’s the best article about a local farm they’ve done like ever. Certainly beats the crappy propaganda piece they did about us a couple of years ago :))
Heheh.
Thank you, Jean – that meshes well with my observations.
You can still do this with cert. organic straw. It will cost more to buy, but not as much as ruining your garden. And you’re supporting small family farms who are improving the planet instead of poisoning it.
Yes – that is a good option.
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I totally concur! I became the first certified organic hay supplier in Georgia in 2015. A lot of people said “why bother”. I wasn’t sure myself but I knew I had really clean hay, I wanted to encourage small herd ruminants to get certified, I wanted to support Georgia Organics 100 Organic Farms campaign and it just felt like the right thing to do. It took me a year or so of schlepping around these heavy hay bales as I searched for customers. I kept hearing stories of peoples gardens getting wiped out – poor seed germination, stunted plants, etc. The common thread was they got horse manure from a neighbor down the way. Hmmmm. Slowly I started to put it together as stories such as these began to surface. I only produce 200 square bales a year on my 7 acres and could sell 5 times the amount of hay if I had it. I hope others will pursue organic certification as there is a large demand. Thanks for posting this article!
[…] my controversial article on straw bale gardening, I recently received this comment from Terri of Ladybug […]
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Hi David,
Ive just learned this the hard way. From contaminated manure. I only used it as a mulch and im in the process of removing it. None has been dug into my soil. The crops of tomato and potato and peas are ruined already. But as you seem to have knowledge and experience could you tell me something about how next season is lightly to go? or is this long tearm damage and i should look at taking down and moving green houses? Im going crazy hear. Any advice and reassurance that this terrible thing (aminopyralid or its cousin clopyralid) will have broken down over 12 months would be so appreciated.
Thanks
Environment is so contaminated … what can you avoid ? even water needs to be filtered. Any backyard gardeners use filtered water to water their garden ? Even if you do, water filter contains food preservatives. My bottom line is : best I can do given what I can do. I use rotten hay or hay sit out for a few years. I tilt them in Fall, so, it will sit another few months in the soil. And I also compost whatever around from my yard, and kitchen. I debated it for a while should I use straw to compost as I was using peat moss. Then the scary thought .. what if the forest was on fire earlier, and have fire retardant sprayed ? How can I know. Bottom line, I will freak myself out completely if trying to get the ‘cleanest’ things on earth – as there is no such thing anymore. I am sure that even if I use my own pee and pooh, they are BPA contaminated, plus a few I do not know.
This is true. I skip the highest risk amendments and use the rest.
Well David this is a years old post but very relevant to me today!I read it last night and had no rest in my bones you see I just setup a 21 bale garden with bales I got for free from a family member(who is not a farmer by the way) and as of 5:00 this morning it is no longer there,i could not wait to get out there and move it off my ground.I thought it would be good in my situation to basically compost in place and get a yield at the same time but I can not afford contamination of any kind.This type of reckless use of serious chemicals got to stop!Thanks for the heads up!
Hello,
If we can get organic straw but not straw bales, can we make our own bale by using a frame and packing straw into it? It seems that another issue is that fewer people are baling hay. I found an organic source but they only do big round bales.
Probably – I haven’t tried, but sounds like a good idea.
Thank you David
Any idea how tightly packed it would need to be? Or would it pack as it got wet and started to rot?
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We are in the south. I grew potatoes in Pine Straw last year, worked great. This year I am growing in free shopping carts from Office Depot. Researching now about growing peanuts in them also. Long’s Natural Farm.
Hi David, I have had a hay bale garden for many years now using Bahia grass hay bales. I have been fortunate to live in an area where it is grown in large quantities as feed hay for a horses and livestock. This has allowed me to purchase directly from the producer so that I am able to verify that the bales I’m purchasing are “clean”. I have heard that there are some folks who have experienced issues what they believed to be contaminated hay. I suppose this may well be the case although without some formal analysis to determine exactly what was in the composted material there may also be some cause and effect assumptions that could be attributed to something else. Either way, if you can source your hay/straw directly from a reputable grower, you can enjoy this method of gardening and it’s many benefits with peace of mind.
As a side note, anyone who lives in an area where Bahia hay is grown and sold I would highly recommend it for Bale Gardening. One of it’s advantages is that most Bahia grass grown for hay nowadays is a sterile hybrid. It is grown because it produces nearly twice as many tillers with the distinctive Y shaped seed heads on them. it is these tillers that are cut and baled. The fact that the seed heads are sterile means no pesky grass seeds germinating in or on your bales turning them into Chia Pets like sometimes happens with straw bales, LOL. They can also be less expensive that straw hay bales. Anyone interested in Bahia bales should ask for the season old stuff. These are the bales that didn’t sell as feed hay before they dried out sitting in the barns over the winter. They are significantly lighter than green feed quality bales and significantly lower in price. These bales are usually sold for $3-$5 a bale as “bedding hay”.
I hope this information helps :-)
I just started looking into straw bale gardening with a sense of apprehension because about 10 years ago, I got some beautifully age horse manure that destroyed my entire garden. I was so heartsick I didn’t garden for 8 years. Now I would like to garden using deep mulching again and I can’t get over the worry that there is no way to know for sure that I’m not getting sprayed hay or straw. I’m thinking I’m going to use grass clippings from my own field, because that’s the only way I can be sure.
It’s super frustrating. Thanks for posting about this. I hope it helps a lot of people keep from making a tragic mistake.
Ignore the fearmongering. Take a handful of the straw in question, moisten it and sow it with some grass seed. Do the same with a handful of garden soil. If the straw seeds germinate like the soil seeds do, you’re fine.
This article is absolute twaddle. Whoever you are, I’m not surprised you’re using a pseudonym–I’d be embarrassed to be associated with it.
You’re not tall enough for this ride, Straw bale.
Grass seed will grow just fine – it’s the broadleaf plants that get wrecked by this toxin.
Does your mom know you’re on the internet?
The truth is that there are really chemicals that are sprayed in fields all across the US to help keep weeds down so animals can safely graze on the grass that grows. Hence names like Graze On. So any plant that is a grass will grow. Any plant that’s not, won’t. If you are unlucky enough to put down compost or manure from animals that ate this kind of grass, you’re in for years of not being able to grow anything but maybe corn in your garden. This is not an exaggeration. Many of us know or are someone who’s had this happen to them. It’s very frustrating. The only way that the straw or hay bales would be part of this equation is if they were grown with one of these chemicals. And you may not know it until you’ve spent hundreds of dollars and at least two good weeks getting your bales and conditioning them, not to mention any seeds, starts, or transplants you’ve gotten. Different regions of the country might offer better solutions, and it pays to know your bales source. But that’s not always possible. We’re trying the straw bales garden because our location has very poor, rocky soil. It’s a risk we’re willing to take because our local farm store said they were told their straw is wheat straw and not sprayed with any herbicides. I guess we’re going to find out very soon if all this work has been for naught. Hands folded and heads bowed.
I had been considering straw bale farming as my soil is basically stones and don’t have much cash for compost etc. The thing I was wondering was if it’s a fire risk?