Hello Bee:
I have not planted this way but have read several articles about it. From what I have read wheat bales seem to be best and 2 tomatoes per bail. I have also included a link with a recent article about this.

http://www.carolinacountry.com/cgardens/thismonth/march08guide/straw.html

Good Luck,
Brenda

Hmmm, I always thought this was something done in straw bales, not hay bales. I would think all the seed in hay bales would cause you a major weed problem that you won't have with straw bales. At any rate there are many helpful resources on straw bale gardening that a Google search pulls up.

Good luck.

Dave

Dave, you are right. From what I understand, hay bales are the better way to go. Some sources say it doesn't matter, but I don't want to have all the extra growth (weeds) to contend with during the growing season! Brenda, thank you for the link. Very helpful!

From what I understand, hay bales are the better way to go. Some sources say it doesn't matter, but I don't want to have all the extra growth (weeds) to contend with during the growing season!

If you don't want all the weeds to contend with then you need straw bales, NOT hay bales. It is hay that has all the weed seeds. Plus hay has some other disadvantages, it mats down more than straw so can suffocate roots, it doesn't drain as well, is predominately carbon rather than nitrogen like hay is and so doesn't go rancid like hay can.

Don't get me wrong, we mow and bale hay here and hay works great as a mulch and heaven knows there are many different varieties of hay too, but straw bales, especially wheat straw is the way to go if you want to grow in the bales.

Good luck.

Dave

From original post: "Is there a type of hay that you prefer?"

Like the others, if I were to grow in bales, I would prefer wheat straw or oat straw to minimize weed seeds. However, in this MSU fact sheet it says, "Wheat straw, mixed with grass or bermuda-grass hay bales will both work just fine for growing vegetables. However, older hay bales that have begun to rot tend to work best for this type of gardening." MSU Fact Sheet Maybe the weed seeds are minimized by heat generated by the pretreatment recommended in that document.

Other question from the OP: "How many tomato plants would you put into 1 square bale." I have another MSU fact sheet similar to the one linked above stored in my favorites on my office computer. It goes into greater detail on the straw bale raised garden technique and suggests two determinate tomato plants per bale.

I think you could easily grow 2 tomato plants per bale in a weed-free condition if you ran a fertigation system down the top of the bales and capped the bales with a wrap of landscape fabric.

Bill

People have had success with both hay and wheat-oat straw. I would go with whatever is cheaper/easier to find, which is usually straw.

Straw bales sprout alot of seeds too = chia bales, but at least for us the sprouts did not take hold.

There are several things you can try with the bales to get rid of weeds. You can soak them early to sprout the seeds and then let them dry to kill off the sprouts, or tarp them after sprouting to cut off light to the new sprouts. Or even spray the sprouts with Round-Up the way a farmer would burn down a cover crop before planting the tomatoes. I recommend mulching the top of the bales with grass clippings to 1) smother new sprouts, and 2) grass clippings supposedly have germination inhibitors in them.

You are supposed to add a lot of nitrogen to the bales a few weeks-1-month prior to planting, which starts them composting inside, so the nitrogen difference betweeen straw and hay should not be a problem. The hay should provide better nutrients.

Last year we set out bales on the stub side to preserve the binding ropes. Roots seemed to grow down into the soil, with very little lateral growth into the straw. The plants were stunted to a little over half size. Maybe the bales work better placed on the stem side (ropes down). After the first season, our decaying bales are in no shape to move easily (heavy and a bit crumbly) so having good ropes is a bit of a mute point...so this year we are going to use two bales side by side, rope side down, with the plants sandwiched between in a little mix/dirt, to give the roots more horizontal space. One bale with two plants only gives each plant about 1 cubic foot of root space...not much compared to the natural root spread in dirt of 3-4 ft in all three directions.

One reason for double baling is that our yard in this area is rocky so the double bale row will decay into a raised bed of decent width.

Good luck with it

My only advice is the obvious.....beware of wayward horses.

Sorry, I couldn't resist...
John

Now that is funny! But it reminds me of a question I have had...anyone had problems with rodents wanting to come and take up shelter?!!

I've been planning to try growing tomatoes this way this year too. I am going to try three plants per bale because of my limited space and I intend to train them to grow as a single vine each, as mentioned in the Square Foot Gardening book. I think if grown in this fashion up my trellis arch I may be able to do 4 plants per bale. The quantity of tomatoes may be impacted, but perhaps single vines will afford me to fit in more varieties of larger fruit in a confined space. Maybe I'll be a pioneer using this technique? :)

i think tomatoes grow anywhere my dad used a 5 gallon bucket with regular landscape mulch in a bucket and threw some seeds in they grew! and we had awesome fruit from it

I followed all the instructions to get straw bales ready and planted two tomatoes in each of three. One plant is doing spectacularly and the other 5 are alive but have barely grown at all. Any ideas? I fertilized 2 weeks ago and it's made no difference. The one that is doing well is Caspian Sea. The others are Roma, Supersteak and Rutgers Improved.

I followed all the instructions to get straw bales ready and planted two tomatoes in each of three. One plant is doing spectacularly and the other 5 are alive but have barely grown at all. Any ideas? I fertilized 2 weeks ago and it's made no difference. The one that is doing well is Caspian Sea. The others are Roma, Supersteak and Rutgers Improved.

Actually everything I have read about this is.... Yes straw has very little seed and less chance of producing unwanted weeds but alot of the straw out there is sprayed with chemicals and can hinder plant growth and straw has zero nutrients which is the reason most people add urea high nitrogen to the bales along with ag lime and start a 15 day process and adding fertilizer and so on. Hay is nutrient rich irregardless of what type of hay and can simply be bought in the fall and by spring it is ready to plant in or if you purchase hay now and water for a week or so it's ready to plant (check temp inside bale).. in with a little potting mix or compost .Hay is 4 or 5 dollars a bale straw is now 9-12 dollars a bale

A Straw bale is only $5.68 here at Lowes. I get them free by soliciting after Halloween on NextDoor app asking neighbors if they have any compostable fall decorations. Sometimes I get lucky and get straw bales too!

Wheat Straw (up to 80-sq ft Coverage)

This information should be helpful. Craig is very knowledgeable.

https://www.craiglehoullier.com/straw-bales