A Mattress Made Of Straw

David Trammel's picture

Destiny Hagest has a wonderful post on her experiences with sleeping on a mattress filled with straw over on the Permies website (posted three years ago unfortunately).

https://permies.com/t/54526/fiber-arts/Straw-Mattress

Especially read the comments, lots of good information.

I've been wondering how to get a bed into my sister's basement. The access is constrained and there isn't any way I see to get my big comfie queen size bed down there. I was just about resigned to having a smaller bed, perhaps even one of those horrible foam things they ship to you rolled up in a box now. This though looks like a real option.

BTW, I loved the picture of the mattress wacking paddle she shows in the comments.

alice's picture

I loved reading that, thanks for posting it. I have always wondered about straw mattresses because so many novels from or set long ago mention them.

On a recent re-read of some of Alison Uttley's lovely books I noticed she said sweet woodruff and tansy were gathered and dried as anti-insect herbs for the house and I can imagine they could be included with the mattress straw. I imagine many of the aromatic bitter herbs would be useful -- reminds me of a research paper from 2001 by Lafuma, Lambrechts, and Raymond, about the anti-insect effects of aromatic herbs in bird's nests -- makes sense that we can learn from what other animals do to keep their beds comfortable and pest-free.

If you're forced into one of those rolled-up foam mattress, you'll want to deodorize it first.
Leave it unrolled for a week (or two!), outside if you can, and it won't smell like a chemical factory. My mother used her garage. We used our Florida room for our daughter's foam mattress.

You'll be happier with the mattress if you let it air itself out.

Teresa from Hershey

ClareBroommaker's picture

You could most definitely grow your own bedstraw if you want. If you don't have a seed source I could collect for you next year.

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alice's picture

Is that maybe Galium aparine, aka cleavers, or perhaps Galium album, aka hedge bedstraw? I haven't seen sweet woodruff in the plant but the pictures I've seen make it look a different shape, although it's the same genus, Galium odorata.

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ClareBroommaker's picture

Though I haven't keyed it out, I think it is Galium aparine , so not the one I call woodruff. Woodruff only grows in deliberately planted gardens here, but this G. apaprine bedstraw happily spreads on its own. It is taller than sweet woodruff, not as pleasant to smell, and not as friendly to touch because the stems, leaves and seeds all cling to skin and clothes. Tiny barbs all over the plant is what makes it good for bedstraw that wouldn't be prone to parting into clumps inside a mattress. When it grows en masse it looks very soft and lush.

alice's picture

That makes sense. Yes cleavers grow as a weed here on lightly disturbed ground, mostly have seen it in field margins and neglected gardens. Marginally edible. There are a lot of different plants in the genus and then of course sometimes the common names refer to totally different plants in the UK and USA. Woodruff (G. odorata) does look a bit different to my eye. Found this pic.

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Blueberry's picture

Clare looks like a good crop of Sweet Woodruff.

alice's picture

Sorry for the confusion Blueberry I think we were talking about different plants in the same genus, see upthread.

Blueberry's picture

When it comes to plant Id I get maybe half right on a good day. With so many dangerous plants in Florida many times I take them to the county ag. for a double check. So it is Velcro plant (local name) not Sweet Woodruff

SLClaire's picture

Years ago, after the waterbed we had then began to leak, my husband Mike and I got rid of it and used wood screws to attach a sheet of particleboard to the top of the waterbed platform. The sheet of particleboard was cut to the dimensions that sufficed to cover the hole in the platform in which the waterbed mattress had been. We bought a queen sized futon (the same size as the waterbed) from a store then located in U City. The queen sized futon has a foam and wool core surrounded by cotton rather than containing only cotton as most futons do, meaning it's far more comfortable to sleep on than all-cotton futons.

I mention this because it's an option that you might be able to employ in your sister's basement. Mike and I together were able to roll up and carry the futon up the half-story stair into our house (it's too heavy for one of us to carry) so you and your sister should be able to get a futon into the basement. Because the platform pieces and the particleboard sheet screwed together we could move it by pieces from our former house into our current one and then re-assemble it in the bedroom. The only thing I would do differently is that I would stain, paint, or otherwise seal the particleboard before attaching it to the platform, which we neglected to do (we could smell the glue used in the particleboard for weeks).