I'm starting my organic vegetable garden in my new home this spring, and I plan to use the straw bale method inside of a raised bed for the first year or two to build up organic matter in the soil. After doing some research, I found that many gardeners have inadvertently poisoned their gardens with contaminated straw that had been treated with aminopyralid herbicides like Grazon. To add to the problem, composted manure of livestock that ate this tainted feed also contains the chemicals and can poison gardens.


For Houston gardeners who use the straw bale method or mulch with straw, where do you find reliably "clean" straw bales? And where do you find compost that you can be confident isn't similarly contaminated?


Of course, I plan to do some seed starting tests in whatever I ultimately buy, but I would like to hedge my bets by going to tried and true sources.


Thanks!

I seriously doubt anyone in Houston uses strawbale gardening. For one you have to start in late summer to get them broken down enough to cool by Spring. If we plant we are more prone to using a wood mulch or a hydromulch. As far as folks that PLANT straw down here they usually have a website and can tell you what pre emergents they use (2-4-D or Grazon) 2-4-D breaks down faster. Straw is prone to 'Rust" down here so is shipped in from colder, less humid, less populated areas. Visit a feedstore in your area and see if they carry straw, then see if it has a place of origin and website on the bindings of the bale, then you can research to see if you wish to actually spend that much money on your bale project.
You can use Black Kow as a clay base composted manure, but I doubt you will find any feed lots to purchase manure from- and I do have root knot nematodes in my sandy silt so I also use a lot of the tree mulches from around here. Luck to you.