I live in the city and never heard of this. Very interesting.

Google Joel Karsten. He's an expert in straw-bale gardening

I live in the city too, so can't have a very big garden. You all are having such water shortage problems in California now, a garden may be out of the question. But if you can have one, try the thick hay/straw mulch method, as it really cuts down on watering. I often water with a watering can (using household gray water) so I can add some organic fertilizer to the water to take care of both chores at one time. Just cut fresh spinach and broccoli this morning from the garden! So much fun!

Like Karamarie says, hay is the leafy part of the plant that is used for animal feed and will include grass seeds, which is why I don't use it in my garden. Straw is the stalk part of wheat,rye, etc and is used for mulch, animal bedding, etc. It will totally decompose with time and not "take root". Last year I used straw bales and have them ready for this year too. I put them next to fencing (in my case next to the horse round pen) and water well. I'll put about an 2" of soil or compost on top where I'll plant seedlings or seeds. This year I do plan to put tomatoes in bales--I'd heard that tomatoes were not good cause they get too top heavy and tip the bale over. But I'll tie the tomato cages to the fence and it should not be a problem. The soaker hose idea is best, but I didn't notice needing more watering than normal. This year I'm planting my winter squash in an area that the bales did not completely decompost from last year--I'm just going to toss in my squash and zinnia seeds (was told zinnias will keep away the squash bugs), water and keep my fingers crossed. My new bales will get tomatoes, peppers, zuchinni, maybe eggplant--warm weather stuff. One nice thing about straw bales is that you don't have to bend so much and weeding was almost totally unneeded.

You can also grow plants directly into a bag of potting soil. You can either make Xs in the bag and plant the plants in the Xs or cut squares. No weeding! Google google images for pics of this concept.

We've done this for the last three years, watered frequently but had more run off than saturation. Had peppers and tomatoes, 12 of each, got 3 small papers and virtually no tomatoes (squirrels like tomatoes). Someone told us they eat them for the moisture but tried putting watering pan out for squairels, they just like tomatoes. lol Gave up and bought tomatoes to can as salsa. This year we're buying patio tomatoes and planting them in 5 gallon buckets just to have enough for the table.

Did it once. Won't do it again. Slugs just love to hide under and breed in bales.

I found that a raised bed is the best way to garden here in the south...

I love to grow potatoes this way. They are so easy to harvest as all you need to do is break up the bales.