As the rice harvest season comes to an end, farmers in Ninh Binh are no longer burning their leftover straw. Instead, they are using baling machines to collect and sell the once-discarded byproduct, ...

Terrible garden soil? Or even no soil? No problem. Yes, you can garden! Straw bale gardening uses a bale as the medium in which you plant. You won't have to dig in rocky or hard soil, and it creates ...

Local gardeners are experimenting with straw bales, taking advantage of the internal composting to help their garden grow. As a little boy growing up on a Minnesota farm, Joel Karsten wondered why the ...

Straw-spreading machine Spread-a-Bale has cut straw usage by up to one third and generated savings sufficient for the system to pay for itself in less than a year, according to Scott Barbour, who ...

Baling, like eating onions, is something I wasn't fond of as a child, but like much better now that I'm an adult. While I viewed baling hay and straw as an odious chore when I was younger, now I look ...

My sister Laura and Grandma Josephine tending the chickens on the family farm. Yes, that is a little genuine Minnesota straw in the foreground. Because the straw bale generates heat as the straw ...

After 11 years in a straw-bale home, Erik Lindbergh has only good things to say. “It’s not like the three little pigs, with the big bad wolf who’s going to blow it away,” Lindbergh said. His house in ...

When you hear about a straw bale building, you might think of a big bad wolf huffing and puffing. But these houses are not just in fairy tales. Builders in San Diego County are turning to straw bales ...

BERKELEY — The three little pigs got it wrong, says Craig Alderson, who chose straw over bricks for the cottage he’s building in his south Berkeley backyard. The walls of the 438-square-foot dwelling ...

BOISE, Idaho — After a year in his straw-bale house on Boise Avenue, Mark Lung says the house has saved him money, conserved resources, provided a comfortable environment through four seasons and ...

Q. I want a natural way to build an energy efficient house without plastics, foams, adhesives, etc. Straw bale houses seem to be natural. Is the straw bale construction efficient for low utility bills ...