After spending close to three hours weeding my vegetable garden, I was ready for a Bahama vacation with a Mai Tai in hand.

Unfortunately, that just wasn't in the cards. So I sat down on my canvas swing and began to read a garden book.

My curiosity intensified when I came across an article about straw bale gardens. I had never tried to grow vegetables, or any other type of plant for that matter, using this method.

You can start your garden with seeds if you use some topsoil on top of the bales, but vegetables can be planted using wheat straw as the base. Plants growing in wheat straw have gotten rave reviews and require minimum weeding, if any. Now, that's my kind of garden!

Wheat straw or oat straw works. Pine straw won't work. It is recommended to purchase bales that have been tightly baled.

It is better to use bales that have synthetic twine if you can find them. The twine won't rot, and it will hold the bales together longer. If the bales have regular twine and they begin to break, just arrange 10 in each row so they hold each other together.

Place the bales where the water will drain away from your house or away from where you'll be walking.

Try two tomato plants per bale, three peppers, two squash and two sets of cucumbers. Be prepared to stake the tomatoes and peppers. Six-foot stakes are the best for tomatoes because they grow tall. If you plant okra, you'll definitely have to stake them.

Water the bales in the morning and after sunset. You can't over-water because any excess will run out of the bales. Soaker hoses will work. The important thing is not to let the bales get dried out.

The bales will start to sprout wheat or oat straw, but just whack it off with a knife. People who have used this method have not had to spray their plants with any pesticides because bugs don't seem to bother the straw bale garden.

This type of garden is great if you don't have a large area of ground, or if you're physically unable to do a lot of kneeling, bending, raking and hoeing.

In order to prepare the bales for your garden, plan on taking about 10 days to set it up.

The first three days be sure to water the bales thoroughly and keep them wet. The fourth, fifth and sixth days, sprinkle the bales with 1/2 cup of ammonium nitrate per bale per day, and water it well into the bales. You can find this nitrate at any agricultural supply store.

Days seven through nine cut back to 1/4 cup of ammonium nitrate per bale per day. Continue to water in well. On the 10th day, stop using the ammonium, but add 1 cup of 10-10-10 fertilizer per bale. Continue to water well. On day 11, plant into the bales. You can use a kitchen utensil such as a spatula to make a crack in the bale for each plant, placing the plant down to its first leaf. Close the small opening back together as best you can.

Now let Mother Nature do her work.

Tips for July

-- Sow broccoli and cabbage seeds for fall.

-- Pinch back mums for the last time and deadhead other flowers where necessary.

-- Make cuttings of poinsettia.

-- Order spring bulbs from catalogs.

-- Transplant cuttings started in spring.

-- Plant winter radishes and start seeds for pansies.

-- Prune summer flowers and add mulch to the garden.

-- Pinch back melon/gourd/pumpkin stems.

-- Sow carrots, collards outside.

-- Think about starting native plants for water conservation.

-- Enjoy the aromas and tastes of gardens -- the birds, and the tastes of newly planted fruits and vegetables.

-- Clean away debris and pump filters from fish ponds and watch dragonflies protect their young as they hover over lilypads.

-- Keep the compost heap in good condition.