Local gardeners are experimenting with straw bales, taking advantage of the internal composting to help their garden grow. As a little boy growing up on a Minnesota farm, Joel Karsten wondered why the ...

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, ...

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, ...

I am excited to report that my straw bale garden yielded some very nice vegetables! If you read Part I of my article, you know that I decided on straw bale gardening so that the garden soil could be ...

Straw bale gardens are becoming popular with growers plagued with poor soil or limited garden space, said University of Missouri Extension horticulturist David Trinklein. Straw bale gardening combines ...

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 ...

Yvon Chouinard and the architect who designed his Ventura, California, home explain why the waste material is the next step in the fight against climate change. Photo by Tim Davis and landscaping by ...

If this sounds a little like it was pulled from a top ten list of icebreakers for tree huggers, it’s probably because it was the one architect Dylan Johnson used to kick off a conversation he had with ...

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 ...