Veg Sweet Potatoes Grown In Straw Bales - Huge No Dig Harvest, Red Garnet

[China Connection]

Sweet Potatoes Grown In Straw Bales - Huge No Dig Harvest, Red Garnet

About 15 minutes long

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVzPw7AxGy4




Midwest Gardener
53K subscribers


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I've grown sweet potatoes in straw bales for a few years now. Some varieties seem to do much better than others. Red Garnet did very well for us last year, and it did great for us again this year. I've grown close to a dozen types of sweet potatoes, and next year, I plan to stick to the types that have worked the best for me. As you will see in this video, harvesting sweet potatoes that are grown in straw bales is a simple as it gets. You just move the straw aside and pull the sweet potatoes out. Not only are they easy to harvest, but they come out cleaner looking than when grown in the soil. If you like to grow sweet potatoes, let us know what type you like to grow. You never know, if I haven't grown them before, I might give them a try. Thanks for watching! Here is how I condition the bale: https://youtu.be/tredysH3-ck Here is how I prepare the bale to plant: https://youtu.be/eUgUH2n9Xdk How To Start Sweet Potato Slips: https://youtu.be/n9ZIzs9PmIg Garnet Red Sweet Potato Harvest From Last Year: https://youtu.be/HYN9gxSuIGs Yellow Jersey Sweet Potato Grow Bag Harvest: https://youtu.be/YrbeZpdVWQA

 

[China Connection]

Conditioning, Planting and Growing a Straw Bale Garden - From Day One

About 15 minutes long

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tredysH3-ck&t=16s


Midwest Gardener
53K subscribers


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This year was our first year for growing things in straw bales. I really didn't know what to expect, so I was very pleased when I saw how well things grow in straw bales. i'm showing how I did things. I'm not saying that this is the best way to do it. It's just the way I did it.....and it worked out pretty well for us. We grew Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplants and even petunias in our straw bales. They all did very well, and the vegetables produced lots of fruit. I thought the eggplants did especially well. I've always had trouble with flea beetles bothering our eggplants, and they didn't bother the plants in the straw bales as much. In this video, I show a day by day look at how to condition the straw bales for planting, then I show exactly how I planted my plants. At the end of the video, I give you a look at the vegetable plants loaded with fruit, so you can see exactly how well it worked out in our zone 6b Midwest garden. Even though I used a compost thermometer to check the temperatures in my straw bales, many people use digital meat thermometers. For more information on Straw Bale Gardening, and to see the straw bale conditioning recipe that I followed, here is an article by Washington State University Extension: https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/2...

 

[Martinhouse]

Straw bales are expensive and need to be replaced every year. Plus in a lot of areas, they would need to be soaked twice a day in hot weather.

I've found it more cost effective to find or buy large containers and fill them with a mixture of cheap fill dirt and lots and lots of good soil and compost.

 

[spinner]

Most straw is treated with glyphosate to dry it before harvest so be careful where and how you use it. Organic straw is $$$$.

 

[AlaskaSue]

I am way too far north…but I keep trying every year. I’ll give it a shot. I can grow potatoes like crazy- easy peasy! But sweet taters have been, um, elusive. We actually gre them commercially in Ok…just very hard up here

 

[seraphima]

Maybe in raised beds in a greenhouse? They need a LOT of heat! They would be happy at 90 degrees, and not to go below, say, 70-75 at night. And, they need a long, long growing season at those temps, 120-160 days, plus light intensity, so they might have to be under lights at both ends of the growing season.. I love sweet potatoes, but have resigned myself to just buying them.