Find a local feed store. They always have straw by the bale.

I've bought the metal landscape edging at Lowe's ... if I remember correctly, it was around $8 for an 8 foot section. My neighbors also look at me funny when I'm out working but it's just because I've been doing it by hand and they love to ride around on bobcats and backhoes!

Is straw the same thing as hay? A nursary up in Croton On Hudson has that, but they do not sell in bulk. Just large bags. If you need more info, feel free to email me.

you might want to also try looking in the local papers -- in the classifieds section. i've had good luck finding things like firewood by looking through those ads. sometimes, people will post a flyer in places like a grocery or diner --- so you could look these over, too.

good luck!
--robbie--

Westchester has feed stores catering to the horsy set. Try the yellow pages. Agway stocks it.
No, hay and straw are different and hay should not be used as mulch since it contains weed seeds.

Thanks for that info, oldroser.

Hay has weed seeds in it, straw doesn't. I learned this the hard way years ago when we seeded our new lawn, and covered it in hay instead of straw. We didn't know there was a difference. So we got beautiful grass, and lots of weeds too. I would think that feed stores would carry hay. I want to get some straw too, because I am seeding a newly cleared area of my property. Wouldn't a garden center be the best place to find it? Not Home Depot type stores, but a garden center. Up here, in Dutchess County, I go to Adams, our local garden center, for that kind of stuff.

In Ulster County, you can buy chopped straw bagged in compressed bales (from Gallo's in Woodstock, for example). That makes it handy for hauling home. I believe it's produced by Iron Will Farm, in Connecticut (860 355-8693). They're about an hour's drive from Dobbs Ferry, or you could call to ask them for the nearest retailer.

I remember seeing straw for mulching at Rosedales- just 10 minutes up the Saw Mill from you. They definitely had it last fall, but I'm not sure if they keep any on hand over the summer.

I'm just a hop and a skip away from you in Ardsley, and I know what you mean about being, well, the rare sight in our neighborhood. Sometimes the gardening service people watch me work while they're on break from manicuring the neighborhood lawns and gardens. There's always a lot of head-shaking going on. : D

Thanks all.

Rosedale, which is my absolute favorite nursery, only has salt hay, which I used os the new asparagus patch and then got all worried thinking I might salt burn the little things of get even more weeds. Thus the switch to straw. The bright oragney color is a bit uneasthetic in my view, but it's the best thing for what I'm doing I'm told.

I finally found straw (at $12/bale) in Bedford Hills at a horsey set place called Bedford Feed and Grain. I think my four bales will pretty much set me up for the rest of my life!

-- Katharine Gates

Hi, I get my straw from D&D on Tuckahoe road in yonkers

Whispering Pine on Route 6 in Mahopac has straw.

KGates, thank you for the update! That place is near me, and I need straw too.

Anyone know where I can buy straw in the Chester/ Warwick area of Orange County?

Anyone can tell me where I can buy straw in the Washingtonville area of Orange County NY? Thanks!

Try Adams Fairacre Farms in Newburgh. I know they sell it at Adams in Kingston.