11/17/2023 0 Comments Pine straw broomIt’s not the end of the world, or the end of your garden. Oh No! I Already Planted in Hay! suju / Pixabay Ask around at your local farmer’s market, and you’re sure to find a few who can help you out. They’ll often have untreated, or low-spray straw available for you. I find it’s easiest to seek out small farmers who grow their own hay and grain for their own animals. If you’re buying straw as a growing medium, you’ll want to look for a farmer who doesn’t treat his fields with these chemicals. Many farmers who grow grain and straw will be using a lot of non-organic treatments. Think of it this way: the hay will say “hey!” to your plants, and you don’t want them socializing.īe aware that most commercially grown straw will have been treated with chemical sprays. The bottom line to remember is that straw won’t compete with your plants, but hay will. Straw bale gardening works because the straw just composts, giving all its nutrients to your seeds. All the seeds in the hay that provide so much nutrition to animals will sprout and grow. Remember how straw is just the stalk, with the seed head removed? Well, if you replace straw with hay bales, you’ll end up growing a bale of wheat. No: absolutely not for straw bale gardening. Can you save ten or twenty dollars and buy hay instead of straw? In fact, if you’re running to the local feed store for gardening straw, you might see that hay prices are lower. Straw bale gardening is getting hugely popular these days. So, now that you know the basic differences between hay and straw, let’s figure out which is best for your garden or homesteading project! Gardening with Bales MikesPhotos / Pixabay The animals are less likely to try to eat it, but the straw is warming and absorbent. This is why straw is most often used as animal bedding in barns and hutches. It might be filling to gnaw upon, but offers little nutritional value at all. While straw is bound into bales that look almost identical to rectangular hay bales, it’s not used as fodder for livestock. This means that straw is pretty low in nutrients. So, if a farmer is growing wheat for flour, he removes the grains and binds up the dry stalks as straw. Straw is the stalk of grain plants, left over after the seeds have been harvested. Large, round bales can weigh over 2000 pounds! They provide a lot of feed on large farms, but are obviously more difficult to transport. They’re easy to transport compared to larger bales, usually only weighing between 50 and 75 lbs. The smaller, rectangular bales are popular with small scale homesteaders for several reasons. It’s also used to feed rabbits, and as bedding for other small animals such as guinea pigs.Īfter it’s cut in the field, hay is dried and bound into bales. If you’re overwintering animals, hay is absolutely essential. In fact, it’s used almost exclusively to feed livestock such as horses, cows, and donkeys during the colder months. It refers to a tall cereal grain (like wheat or barley), grass, or occasionally a legume like alfalfa, harvested primarily as animal feed. Hay is the dried remains of a whole plant. It’s what happens after harvest that differentiates the two of them, and there are major differences. Hay and straw both start life out in the fields. Understanding the differences will help you see why they’re often used for different thing on farms and in gardens. Let’s take a look at straw vs hay, so you have a solid reference for the different ways you can use each of them.įirst of all, we have to know the difference between hay and straw. So, how do you know which one you need? What’s the difference between the two anyway? Have you ever walked into a farm supply store, asked for hay, and been offered straw instead? Have you ever accepted the offer only to discover that straw didn’t fit your purpose at all? I know I have.
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