Skip the ground and try planting fruits and vegetables in straw bales instead, suggests Joel Karsten, author of “Straw Bale Gardens” (Cool Springs Press, 2013) and guru of one of this year’s gardening ...

Worries about the down economy and food safety are fueling a boom in home gardens. However, many people don't want to toil in the garden, or they don't have enough yard space. A Wake Forest man says ...

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, ...

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 ...

You may want to pick up wheat straw bales to keep for your vegetable garden next year. Gardeners like Bea Waggener of Newport News are discovering the advantages of gardening in bales, especially when ...

Some gardening tasks (despite being good exercise) are just not very enjoyable. Digging in red clay, weeding and bending over to pick bush beans come to mind as three seasonal “pains.” Enter growing ...

It's time to daydream about fresh BLT sandwiches and large slices of homegrown tomato on just-made garden salads. Meaning it's time to get your tomato plants in the ground. May is generally the ...

When Joel Karsten was growing up on a farm in Minnesota, he noticed how lushly weeds grew from rotting bales of straw. That made him wonder: If straw worked so well for growing weeds, wouldn’t it work ...