I would think that you can, since it is basically pine.

Framing lumber is probably treated, likely with arsenic or other elemental poisons that won't break down any time soon. I'd skip it unless you know how that lumber was originally treated.

Why waste good lumber? I'd use it to frame new raised beds, rather than use it as filler. Unless it's a bunch of short, stubby pieces in which case it should be fine to use (it should decompose the same as branches and logs). Most framing lumber is fir, pine, or spruce that's been kiln-dried. I doubt that it's pressure treated.

Rodney

All of the pieces I have are leftover from building my raised beds and they are all short odd-sized pieces under 3' long.

They are not pressure treated but I'm wondering how fast they will break down. I don't want to take up root space with wood that's not going to break down for a long time.

Part of the benefit from hugels...which I am not a fan of...is how the bark acts as a water "sponge" much quicker than the wood giving a sort of quickly-available benefit to the system while the wood goes through it's "rot" process.

That said, pine is a softwood and with adequate moisture it should become "rotted" enough to do the job quite quickly compared to many other types of wood.

Fwiw, pine (even with the bark) isn't an ideal wood for this process because of how difficult it is for the pine bark to break down and it's not as "sponge-like" compared to a lot of other barks. It's arguably better to use plain wood pine compared to whole pine for this...but most wouldn't use a pine source to begin with unless it's the only wood available.

nc-crn, not sure why you aren't a fan of hugels. I had the best garden even on my little hugel. It rained almost every day for 2 months here. Almost every plant thrived and survived on the hugel, while ground level plants died.

As a soil scientist I would not want to add that much slow decaying OM to a deep soil profile. I would much prefer to compost it separately (and quicker) and then add it higher in the soil profile.

Compaction years later mixed with a massive amount of OM that deep in the soil profile doesn't excite me much. Erosion from piles of mineral layers is also an issue I've seen between seasons.

I'm not saying it doesn't work...I would just use the given resources differently.

What makes the wood spongeworthy (ha ha) is that there be fungi in it. No fungi, hugel does not work. And there is a difficulty in that most fungi eat either hardwood or conifer. They have very specialized enzymes. If you are in a place without conifers, and you bury dry pine, it might not work. Really, hugel was invented to get something out of large rotting logs or firewood which had taken too much rain. If the log is rotten, there are short term benefits as well as long. The benefits are essentially a strong micorrhyzal flora, lowering water and fertilizer needs. You also have a long term barrier (leaky of course) for all your percolating chemical fertilizers, and the wood is slightly more water retentive than clay, and significantly more than sand.

Based on what glib says, framing lumber won't workin a hugel or buried deep in a raised bed as that kind of wood isn't spongeworthy or doesn't have a lot of fungi breaking it down.

Maybe I'll just find another use for this junk wood.