As a little boy growing up on a Minnesota farm, Joel Karsten wondered why the healthiest weeds seemed to be ones growing out of broken down straw bales. Years later, after earning a degree in ...

With Missouri forage supplies in short supply due to drought, some livestock producers are looking at wheat straw as feedstuff, despite its poor nutrient quality. This leaves wheat farmers asking what ...

My sister Laura and Grandma Josephine tending the chickens on the family farm. Yes, that is a little genuine Minnesota straw in the foreground. Because the straw bale generates heat as the straw ...

Planting vegetables in straw bales can be a lot easier – especially on the back – than traditional gardening in the dirt, according to local master gardeners. You don’t need containers and only a ...

Bad soil? Not enough soil? Maybe even no soil? Skip the ground and try planting fruits and vegetables in straw bales instead, suggests Joel Karsten, author of “Straw Bale Gardens” (Cool Springs Press, ...

Do you recommend building straw bale homes? And/or can you insulate an existing home with straw bales on the outside of the home and then finish it using siding, wood, or stucco? I wonder why this ...

Baling, like eating onions, is something I wasn't fond of as a child, but like much better now that I'm an adult. While I viewed baling hay and straw as an odious chore when I was younger, now I look ...

When building post and beam in straw bale, what if I substitute concrete block columns for the wooden posts? Will they draw moisture into the straw? They could. However, the usual practice is to wrap ...

When I moved into my new Philadelphia rowhouse, I was determined to grow the vegetable garden that had eluded me all those years in a cramped Manhattan apartment. But reality struck with the first ...

Lea esta nota en español. LIVE OAK – The hum of a tractor’s motor fills the forest as a worker heaves an armful of pine needles into a rusted red baler. He flips a metal lever over the tawny leaves ...

When you hear about a straw bale building, you might think of a big bad wolf huffing and puffing. But these houses are not just in fairy tales. Builders in San Diego County are turning to straw bales ...