I made some hay!

[Silverleaf]

Bits of my garden are quite "wild" right now (for "wild" read "neglected" :lol, and the urge came upon me last week to have a go at using some of that long grass to make hay for the bunnies I'm getting in late August. They won't be able to have fresh green stuff for a couple of months so I thought some yummy hay would be a perfect treat for them.

I set up three drying racks indoors (actually the wire parts of some old guinea pig cages I converted into light boxes for my seedlings earlier this year) and hand-picked as many different types of grass as I could find, with different textures. Brought it inside, laid it on the racks, and moved it around every day. It's dried beautifully, and smells absolutely gorgeous, and looks so different from that tired old brown pet shop hay.

I also made barley hay. I've been growing potatoes, squash and courgettes in straw bales, and some of the seeds in the bales germinated to give me nice lush barley grass which my Neo absolutely loved. I picked only the leaves and a few stems that haven't developed seed heads yet, and it's also dried really well. I have plenty left for a few more batches of hay, and I'll harvest some seeds to sow next year too.

So with my next batch I'm going to try foraged plants - I have lots of appropriate things growing like dandelion, apple/pear leaves, plantain, avens, daisy, wild rose, hawthorne, white clover, willowherb, raspberry, blackberry, bramble, pea leaves, nasturtium, and herbs. I know they can't have fresh forage until they are 4 months, but is dried forage different? I don't mind having to save it until they are older of course, but my googling so far hasn't been very helpful.

But anyway. Small-scale hay making is surprisingly easy, so if you fancy it, have a go!

 

[MummyBunnyEm]

Sounds great Silverleaf. Not too sure on the dried forage for baby buns I'm afraid.

 

[MightyMax]

Bits of my garden are quite "wild" right now (for "wild" read "neglected" :lol, and the urge came upon me last week to have a go at using some of that long grass to make hay for the bunnies I'm getting in late August. They won't be able to have fresh green stuff for a couple of months so I thought some yummy hay would be a perfect treat for them.

I set up three drying racks indoors (actually the wire parts of some old guinea pig cages I converted into light boxes for my seedlings earlier this year) and hand-picked as many different types of grass as I could find, with different textures. Brought it inside, laid it on the racks, and moved it around every day. It's dried beautifully, and smells absolutely gorgeous, and looks so different from that tired old brown pet shop hay.

I also made barley hay. I've been growing potatoes, squash and courgettes in straw bales, and some of the seeds in the bales germinated to give me nice lush barley grass which my Neo absolutely loved. I picked only the leaves and a few stems that haven't developed seed heads yet, and it's also dried really well. I have plenty left for a few more batches of hay, and I'll harvest some seeds to sow next year too.

So with my next batch I'm going to try foraged plants - I have lots of appropriate things growing like dandelion, apple/pear leaves, plantain, avens, daisy, wild rose, hawthorne, white clover, willowherb, raspberry, blackberry, bramble, pea leaves, nasturtium, and herbs. I know they can't have fresh forage until they are 4 months, but is dried forage different? I don't mind having to save it until they are older of course, but my googling so far hasn't been very helpful.

But anyway. Small-scale hay making is surprisingly easy, so if you fancy it, have a go!

What a lovely post - I was very interested to read all that!

I have dried the different (long!) grasses from my garden, and you're right, they look and smell lovely.

I was fascinated by you growing veggies in a straw bale - I haven't heard of that before. However, I have just googled it and I think I may be hooked :shock: It sounds amazing! I had far too many kale plants for our raised beds this year, and am struggling to find somewhere to put them. It may be too late to plant them into a bale this year, but I shall look into this for next year!

 

[Silverleaf]

I think I'll wait to give them the dried forage, just to be on the safe side. It's only a couple of months anyway.

MightyMax, this is my first year growing in straw. It took about three weeks of watering every day, and I used urine and fish blood and bone to "activate" them. Yes, my own urine. But they look lovely and rotted inside and they retain moisture really well. The squash/courgettes and potatoes are doing very well, but I'm not having as much luck with the tomatoes.

I am planning to get more bales for next year, as I really don't have much growing space. Well I have space, but my soil is horrible heavy clay that's too hard for me to dig, so this seemed much easier than making new beds! When the old bales become unusable the rotted straw will be great as a soil conditioner.

And of course the barley was a great bonus too! It might even be worth getting a bale just to grow barley, or oats, or whatever the straw is, for forage. I believe you can do that with hay bales too.

 

[tonibun]

This sounds wonderful. I would love to have a go. We must try to keep this Thread going . I don't fully understand about the straw bales and growing potatoes?

 

[Silverleaf]

Went out for a forage this morning since the sun's finally decided to come out (didn't want to get wet plants). More barley grass, lots of other grasses, plantain (both kinds), avens, dandelion, willowherb, raspberry, loganberry, bramble, hawthorne, wild rose, mint, lavender, apple leaves. Just realised I'd forgotten deadnettle but I have plenty of other stuff so that's okay.

Tonibun, give it a try! It's really easy, honestly.

I know, the straw bale bit is a bit weird, but I'll try to explain.

I found out you can grow plants in rotted straw bales so I thought I'd give it a try. Earlier in the year I bought 12 bales, and spent the best part of a month persuading them to rot by fertilising (mostly with urine, but you can use ordinary fertiliser instead) and watering them every day. They get really hot with bacterial activity and then cool down, and then you can plant in them. I popped in some squash/courgette plants, tomato plants, and a few spare potato tubers that I couldn't fit I my main bed. It's really just an experiment, but I can already see it's working fine and gives me some easy extra growing space.

The reason that I mentioned it was that there were lots of barley seeds left in the straw and they sprouted, so I have some barley plants growing among my veggies. I though, hay, why not?

 

[Silverleaf]

More info about straw bale gardening here. http://strawbalegardens.com Obviously they hype it up, I don't think it's quite the miracle they claim it to be but it's an interesting way of growing things, especially if you have horrible soil like me.