What did you grow?

Did it really work?

been doing it for years:

check our presentation, just another adaption to gardening german word means hill culture, all breaks down flat in the end. good way of disposing of large prunings instead of shredding.

len

Next I covered the wood with leaves and other vegetation that I had raked up in my spring clean-up and tromped on it quite a bit.

After that I added some compost and horse manure.

Then I had to cover the pile with several inches of soil, something that is not easy to come by for me. What I used was soil from the large ant hills that dot our property. They are not active this early in the spring and the large piles of soil are completely rock-free, so this worked really well. Here is the bed partially covered with this soil.

I added more logs around the edges of the pile to help hold it all in place. Here is what it looked like when it was complete.

Then I waited until the middle of June when the weather had warmed up enough to plant some squash. I put in small transplants and some cosmos as well. I planted these into small pockets of added soil so that the roots would get a good start before growing into the mass of wood.

This is what it looked like by the end of July. The only time I watered it was a few times when the plants were very small. Mind you, we did have an extremely rainy spring and early summer and I mulched around the plants with old hay.

It produced a huge quantity of squash. This last photo was taken in early October just before a frost put an end to the harvest.

I was really thrilled with the success of this method. I was quite surprised that I got such a good crop in the first year. I've already prepared 3 more hugelkultur beds and am looking forward to planting squash and potatoes into them this summer. I'd definitely recommend giving hugelkultur a try.

Lloyd

I first saw hugekultur mentioned on Lifehacker.com of all places and it got me intrigued. I wanted to know what issues there might be with it, and so far the Internet hasn't turned up any serious drawbacks. But here are some things I came across:

Use if certain woods like black walnut will make it difficult for some plants to grow, like tomatoes.
Use of green wood in the mound will initially lower the nitrogen content until the wood begins to rot and release nitrogen.
Use fine chicken wire over the wood/under the soil to prevent voles or other garden eating pests from taking up residence in those nice spaces created by the logs in the garden.
Flat raised beds, mounds, terraced, or trench-laid wood are other ways to use hugelkultur.

Other than that, I'm looking forward to reading about anybody else's experiences with it.

"How long do you think that bed will last before the wood deteriorates to the point that it no longer holds water? "

I'm hoping that the bed will continue to be productive for a long time. I assume that as the wood slowly rots, it will turn into good soil, which because of its high organic matter content will still retain water well. I'm sure the bed will gradually shrink down, but I plan to mulch it with leaves every fall and add mulch around the plants in the spring, so that will help to counteract the shrinkage. As the outer logs rot I can push them in toward the centre of the pile and add new ones on the outside. That, plus the added mulch on top may be enough to maintain its effectiveness at retaining water. I don't think that the bed would have to be rebuilt, but it would probably require some maintenance.

Depending on the nature of the soil underlying the hugelkultur bed, what you might do if you're worried about water retention is to start by digging a shallow trench and throw your wood into it. That would help to keep the wood wetter and you could also use the soil you dig out to cover it. I tried this with one of the beds that I started in the fall, but it was just too hard for me to dig out the rocks, so I had to go with building the bed on top of the ground and using anthill soil to cover it as I did with my first hugelkultur effort.

Too bad we don't do hedgerows in the US anymore.

I am at least going to dig down and half bury the large logs and pack them in with some smaller branches and twigs from a brush pile I have growing on the back of my barn. Then I will cover that with the sod from the two 4x4 sections of lawn that I will be tearing out amd then I'll throw some of the goodies from my year old compost pile on the top. Then I'll cover all that with screened soil from a pile I have from a project last year.

If I can get enough logs and old wood, I'd also like to put some wood in the bottom of the 8 raised beds I plan on adding the to the other part of the garden. It's going to be a big project, but I took a week of work after memorial day so I can finish up and then plant.

Planted some lettuce and spinach this week (zone 6), and plan to put tomatoes and peppers later.

Digging hole

Raked it smooth and shaped the sides up to a bowl like shape.

Adding the logs

Adding sticks

Adding the sod, I took the picture then added a couple wheel barrels full of 90% Completed compost.

One side finished, I stole the timbers from one of our landscaped beds in the front of the house, we are putting a brick border out there sometime this summer so I thought these would edge the bed nice and allow me to weed whack it easier.

Flat shot for showing the bed height. I estimate 2 FT above groung and 18 inches below ground.

Will be planting my squash and pumpkins and melons on the patch, it's 20 something feet by 4 Ft.

Then every few years, knock them over and take out the good stuff at the bottom.

What I'm seeing is that any nearby trees just send their rootlets up into the pile, so I'm tempted these days just to leave them alone. But I suspect that I'm also getting termites, what with finding them in the soil around the piles.

These are getting used in NM and AZ as rain collectors - bury downed wood and slash in a pit and direct the runoff into the pit. Plants downhill from the pit - usually trees - get a slow trickle of moisture as the water keeps moving slowly through the soil.

len

Also to get to 3ft tall, it almost call for 3 logs? 2 in the bottom and 1 on top plus all the smaller branches and stuff?

On the subject of pine, what kind of harm can high content of tannins?

I once lived in a tropical rain forest, and if cotton clothing fell off the clothes line, if it wasn't picked up immediately, there'd be termite damage within an hour. When they swarm, they're attracted to light. I was working at a huge hydroelectric dam in the middle of nowhere, and the big spot lights on top the dam were the only thing for miles and miles of forest. When the termites would swarm, they'd be eight inches deep on top the dam. They'd shed their wings, and the next morning, driving over the dam, the truck would kick up huge clouds of wings.

no such issue in our 6 beds.

anyhow whatever, don't need experts to design it or anything really, whether permaculture or not, all common sense.

len

wow lot of effort, hope you enjoy the fruits of that labour at some time.

ours are working just laying the logs etc.,. on top of the ground building a side and covering with dirt.

yes zahy, east west is best orientation permaculture expert or not.

len