(acoustic guitar music)
- Hello and very warm welcome back to Huws Nursery
on this beautiful October's evening.
Now, the clocks have just turned back,
but we're going to turn back to later on in the year
when we were actually growing squash in hay bales.
And I'm gonna show you in this video exactly how to do that,
and this really fun method of growing squash,
so I hope you enjoy.
Now, last year we did decide to grow in these hay bales
and the results were okay.
But what we found by leaving them out for a whole year,
they actually began to decompose
and to turn into some quite nice compost on the inside.
So we thought it would be a perfect time to give it a go.
And perhaps if you wanna grow in straw hay bales
is to use ones which are a bit older,
and as you can see here they are beginning to decompose,
so the nutrients have more plants available,
for plants that you're gonna be planting.
So we chose squash, and we have a bit of space next
to our summerhouse where we can plant some squash
with the idea of them trailing along the ground
to try and use up the space effectively.
So we've got two varieties.
We've got tondo di piacenza and also yellow or gold rush.
Now these are two courgette or zucchini varieties,
and the tondo variety is actually a round shape,
which is great.
So to plant them all you need to do is to add a shovel
of compost just to give them an extra boost,
give them a lot of water, and they'll be set.
And as you can see they're settling very happily.
And the great thing about growing in straw hay bales
is the fact that they're really good at retaining moisture.
So specifically if you are in a really hot or dry country,
then growing in these are a great way to try
and hold in moisture.
Now, the main thing to do as you can see here,
you can see that the weeds
and the grass is beginning to grow over.
So what we need to do is just to make sure
that you give it a good cut and then cover it,
cover the ground, which the squash are growing over,
with some straw or some hay.
And this is just gonna act as a mulch
and also mulch for next year
if you wanna plant anything there.
It's almost kind of a sheet mulch,
but the main reason why you want a mulch
is to protect and suppress the grass underneath,
and to also act as a really nice way
to look after the fruits which you're growing.
So here's just another example,
just be quite liberal with it if you want to,
it just depends completely on
how much straw or hay you want.
And if you want to get straw hay for less
then it's great to look at equestrian centres,
or also if you know anyone who has a farm,
I'm sure they might have a couple of spare bales
that they won't mind you having.
So as you can see the trailing varieties
are growing really nicely.
Now these were actually west-facing,
but we did get quite a bit of sun
and we can see we added some sturgeon
just to attract small beneficial insects into our garden,
and here they actually reached growing up our summerhouse,
which is really good and we were really pleased
with the results.
And here's just an example of one of the fruits,
which are growing underneath.
So it's almost an experiment, and here's the gold rush,
but it's almost an experiment to see how well they would do
growing in a straw bale,
and we were really happy with the results.
So I hope you found this video interesting
and they may have at least given you a few ideas
for the next growing season.
But if you have any experience
with growing food in straw or hay bales
then I'd love to hear from you,
what projects you have got up to.
Now if you enjoy the videos I create here for you
on Huws Nursery and you want to take your support
to the next level,
then you should check out my patreon profile
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and here I can give you loads of fantastic rewards,
and it just means that I can continue to work hard
and develop great content for you.
Now your actual support will allow me to learn new skills
and invest in better equipment for you guys
and you get a load of great rewards in return.
So if this interests you, then please check out
my patreon profile and a couple of links,
either on this video or down below in the video description.
And I really, really appreciate any of your support,
even from your kind comments.
So once again thank you so much for watching
if you have any further questions or comments,
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Thank you.