Good morning Diana. I have a question about last years garden. We tried hay bale gardening for the first time. It worked pretty well, but on one of the bales I had something that looked and acted like a puffball growing on the plants.
A) What is it?
B) How do I combat it?
C) Are the veggies (in this case, thyme) safe to eat?
Thanks. I am the worlds worst gardener, but I keep trying!
Was the ‘puffball’ actually growing ON the plants themselves, or just IN the hay? When those bales get and stay wet, they can sprout all sorts of fungal-y things.
The best thing to do with fungus/mushrooms growing in straw or wood mulch is to just disturb them with a rake, or pluck them out and toss somewhere HOT and dry so they’ll die.
Anytime you have ‘warm and wet’ fungus can show up.
I did straw bale gardening a couple of years ago - worked well for me and I did have mushrooms or mushroom like stuff growing out of my bales.
The book I used as a resource was “Straw Bale Gardens Complete” by Joel Karsten. It has a lot of pictures, great ideas for making a trellis over the bales - even using them as a ‘greenhouse’ for cold(er) weather planting. There are also garden plans for various numbers of bales. The pictures and garden plans are terrific. I highly recommend the book. PS - he’s even got a way to make your own planting ‘bales” using kitchen scraps, grass clippings, last year’s leftover bales - anything compostable
About mushrooms, he says:
“Mushrooms may sprout on the outside of the bales, and this is a good sign. Mushrooms are a sign that the inside of the bales have begun to decompose. The mushrooms that bloom will not hurt anything, so there is no need to do anything to them. Knock them over if you’d like, but they will probably grow right back. If you ignore them, they will disappear completely within a few weeks.”
Here’s an Amazon link for the book:
https://www.amazon.com/Straw-Bale-Gardens-Complete-Karsten/dp/1591869072