Strawbale gardening

If you don't already know about strawbale gardening, have a look at these sites:
http://www.beginner-gardening.com/straw-bale-gardening.html
http://www.lensgarden.com.au/straw_bale_garden.htm
http://www.gardeningtipsnideas.com/2007/05/straw_bale_gardening.html

And this is what I have so far:

12 bales of straw, in two 3x2 formations, with a walkway in between (which is a bit wider than it looks in this photo), sitting on flattened corrugated cardboard boxes to suppress the grass. Not particularly pretty, but it's a start.

I set the bales out yesterday when rain was threatening, but not much eventuated, so I soaked them with greywater today. A lot of the water runs straight through, but it's being held a bit by the cardboard, so we'll see how it goes.

I need to do that again tomorrow & Monday, and then I'm going to start adding some Charlie Carp to it. I also need to start some seeds off in newspaper pots while the bales are heating up and ageing, and in a few weeks I should be able to pop the newspaper potted seedings straight into the straw.

I figure even if it's an abysmal failure, I will have some nicely aged mulch for the dirt garden ...