Today I continue my quest in creating and posting one block a day of the fabulous That Town And Country Quilt by the lovely Susan-Claire Mayfield. This is day three hundred and twenty-eight of that project.

This quilt block shows a stack of straw bales. The bales themselves are a very yellow orange fabric. Each bale is outlined by a very frilly leaf like stitch of very gold thread. There are four bales in a block, with one bale on top. There is another bale to the right leaning on the main pile of bales. — Click To Enlarge

Straw or hay? What’s the difference?

Hay is grown as a feed for sheep, cattle, horses, goats, yaks, and chickens like it too.

Straw is a by-product of a grain crop, usually wheat.

Hay is greener in the bale, and straw looks yellow/gold.

This looks like straw. Bales of straw are so helpful.

The first thing you think of on the farm is animal bedding, and it’s definitely good for that. But straw has a lot of uses, especially in the garden. It’s much better for mulching your flower beds for winter and summer because it doesn’t have the seeds hay has in it.

It will help protect your perennials in winter and keep down weeds in the summer. You can use bales of it to make the walls of a cold frame or a compost bin.

Already have a compost bin? Put it in the compost!

Straw attracts earthworms, and they are composting champions.