Every once in a while Scott, normally a careful planner, throws caution to the wind and acts on a whim. He had seen this picture of a raised bed built out of hay bales and then next day a phone call was placed to the local feed store. They showed up two hours later with 10 bales of hay and the boys quickly got to work.
He liked how substantial the hay bales made the raised bed look and the thought that we could sit around it. Being that the rest of our yard is filled with raised beds made out of old thin redwood fencing, a comfortable place to sit while weeding sounded good to me.
He dug a shallow trench right in the middle of the garden, a spot that still lacked a raised bed and placed the bales into the trench. The challenge was finding enough dirt and compost to fill the enormous new bed! How he found enough without having dirt delivered is beyond me…but maybe I should go out and check my flower beds to see if there is any dirt left in them!
Now the melons seeds have been planted in it and we await their growth. Meanwhile we have actually spent quite a few moments sitting out there talking as a family. The boys love running around the perimeter and jumping off of it. Economically, I don’t think this was the most cost efficient of raised beds, doing the whole thing out of wood would have been slightly more expensive and would have lasted a lot longer. But what is a garden if not for experimenting, being creative and trying new things?
Are you doing anything new in your garden this year?
Yours is the first hay bale raised bed I’ve seen, and I heartily approve! Excellent. This past winter we built a hay bale dog house for the golden retrievers we rescued.
I think it looks wonderful! It probably keeps the soil warm, too, with all that mass. I’m looking forward to following you to see how it “wears”. I wonder if it will sprout? Can you share how much $$ 10 bales set you back?
We wish you the best in your experiment!
It looks so inviting. Of course you would sit around it and talk and the boys would play. Seems like it’s already a huge success and the melons will simply be the frosting on the cake.
Clever.
Do you have room to plant pumpkins? That would make a terrific photo op in the fall.
This is EXACTLY what I wanted our City Council to do on the paved patio in front of City Hall as a demonstration victory garden. They weren’t open to it, more’s the pity. Easy to clean up, easy to install. . . cheap. Oh well. If I had a lot of room, I’d expand a garden like this.