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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

If you love the idea of dining on lettuce and tomatoes that you grow yourself, but you're not into the digging and weeding end of it, there's a solution: straw-bale gardening. Gardening with straw ...

Upon retiring in June of last year, one goal was to plant a big, beautiful vegetable garden. With great enthusiasm, I set to work diligently rototilling, planting and fertilizing. Unfortunately, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...