You have different string options when it comes to baling your pine
straw. Some of the surveys that we have done
actually looked at preferences that folks had which pertain to
would they rather have twine, would they rather have wire on their pine straw and most people
said that they would rather have some sort of twine or string holding their pine straw
bales together over
wire. This is just because it's a lot easier to deal with especially if you're looking
at a homeowner -
they'd much rather have a string or twine binder rather
then something that's wire. For my demonstration today I'm going to
actually use this
just a jute twine or string. This is a little
heavier duty than some that you might get but it still is
kind of prone to breaking. It can be kind of brittle.
I tend to use it especially when I'm doing demonstrations because it does
biodegrade pretty quickly
and it's easy to buy on a big roll. For people who actually do it
a more on a production basis, they use something more like this
plastic twine. This is actually off of a pine straw bale that I purchased
not too long ago, but this is pretty common
plastic twine usually you see it in orange or as blue
but this is what's pretty common
that most people use. Again, it cuts pretty easy but it also is a lot more
strong then the natural
natural materials. Some people don't like it because it isn't a natural material and it
doesn't degrade if it gets left in the woods or if it gets left in your yard.
If you are using it, it's definitely something to be sure to get and
dispose of properly. Before you can bale your first bale, you have to get the
twine in there properly
and to do this, you open up the
door and inside
I've got two small pieces of molding.
I just attached them at the bottom and up really close
to those two pieces of molding, I have installed
four small eye bolts. You want them as close as you can get to those pieces of molding because
the string is going to actually go
between eye bolt and the piece of molding. It doesn't go through the eye bolts but
but between the bolts and the molding just to hold it in place
while you're putting the pine straw in there so it doesn't pop up and start to move
around on you.
So once you get your string cut, usually I just tell people to maybe pull it out
out like two or three times
your arm's length and that should give you plenty
of string to work with. You tie a loop in the end
of your string, just a simple loop in the end and you cut two so a loop in each one
and then there's nails on the back that you just hook it on.
So it hooks in there and then you bring it down the back
of the pine straw baler and you put it between the
wood and the eye bolt so that it sits
between the little pieces of molding or the small pieces of wood and the eyebolts.
Then you take the strings - the free ends of the strings
and they go through these holes on the front of the door
so that you can get to the
ends of the strings when the door is closed
and you close the door and latch it so that when you put the pine straw in there the
pressure of the pine straw doesn't make
the door come open. So,
again you want to be sure that your pine straw is relatively clean,
free of sticks and twigs and if you do have a burning regime on your forest, you
want to be sure that you're just getting the clean, fresh
new pine straw and not any older pine straw. Or if you're not burning and you
haven't raked before and you have a layer of old pine straw in the understory
you don't want to get that either. You want to be sure to get the clean, fresh straw. It's this nice golden color.
And I am going slow for demonstration purposes.
And again, if you see any sticks or twigs, you take those out.
You fill up the hopper and once you kind of get
your first set in there
then you put the plunger down and we'll press it down, compact it a little
take the plunger out and we'll fill in with some more pine straw.
So you compact it down and you're able to put in more straw.
So you're able to compact it down
even further
then what you can do is
take it out and you
unhook the string from the nails that are in the back,
you pull it through the holes
so you have the
loops come through on the top
then take your strings and run them through the loops
so that it catches
then you can put your plunger down again to compress the bail
again because you want to get a nice, tight bail - pull down on the strings
again.
Pull it off
as tight as you can. Tie it off by looping back behind
then
open the door,
pull by the strings and you have a bale of pine straw.