I feel decadent buying all of that straw, but I already have it all earmarked. And I think it'll be better for the garden than the leaves I raked out of the woods last year --- it will promote more bacteria than fungi in the soil, which row crops like.

I used rye bales to build a compost pile this summer and they got really wet (lousy location) and sprouted their own mushrooms. The chickens really liked them. BSF took over the pile and I discovered the pupae had migrated into the straw. A nice two-fer deal there! The whole deal is now feeding and mulching our baby orchard.

No 'shrooms in the garden straw.

I gave up using straw for mulch, too many weeds from the seeds, and a home for slugs. The neighbor has some spoiled hay I think I'll give that a try for next years garden.

April -- Wow! That's amazing! If I could recreate that on a regular basis, it would be thoroughly worth buying straw.

Zimmy --- We did have some grain seeds sprout from the straw we got last year, but not too much. I always read about people who find spoiled hay for free or cheap and am very jealous...