Given the drought this year and the lack of Alfalfa the cost of using this for our gardens may not be very sustainable. Do you have deciduous trees where you live? They produce a more sustainable source of organic matter for gardens.

can't comment on costing greenpastures,

but if it is readily available and affordable for you use it, i would think in whatever form you like, the hay would be good in the compost here we might use it as mulch.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens straw bale garden

The pellets should be the same as the meal (if they have a feed label you can compare) it is easier to use the pellets as feed so they probably sell many times more of them. Another thing to look for is that the weights of the two bags may not be the same (50 lbs. is standard for alfalfa pellets here.)

After watering a couple of times the pellets will fall apart.

The alfalfa hay that I have used for animal feed looks like it would make a very nice mulch - very weed free and it even smells good. When you open the bale and loosen it up, do it on concrete or a tarp so that you can collect all of the finer leaves that will fall out - the leaves are the best part.

Hope this helps. Best of luck!

Alfalfa is a wonderful soil amendment as it's a deep rooted plant that brings up minerals that other plants may not. I use alfalfa pellets as our local feed stores don't stock the meal. I've never heard there's a difference in the nutritional value. I soak the pellets in a bucket of water and add some to each watering can when I hand water. Eventually the residue is spent and I spread that on top of the soil. I don't find it expensive, I paid $10 for a 20kg bag which goes a long way.

Using alfalfa hay for compost or as mulch would likely be good altho the cost for me would outweigh the value. If you have a small garden and don't need much it might be OK. Good quality early cut alfalfa hay is expensive and later cuts will be have more tough stems which may not compost easily. Could be run thru a shredder first.

I have raised beds with totally organic soil. Each year I buy 40-50 pound bags of Alfalfa horse cubes, soak them and mash them up for my gardens. I've never found a better way to get the deep-rooted micro minerals into my garden than these cubes. They are a wonderful ingredient in my soil formula. Maybe alfalfa meal would be easier to work with but it's not available in this area.

Just out of curiosity...

What is the alfalfa to water ratio you use?

I don't have a water ratio. I soak the alfalfa cubes in any amount of water to soften them up so they can be worked into my soil. This year I used 80 pounds of alfalfa cubes in each raised bed measuring 10'x5'x18"deep.