Hugelkultur anyone?

[harleysilo]

Hi Everyone,

I've been away for a few years while we renovated our backyard. I just finished building 3 raised beds on the south side of our house where we previously had a raised bed. The kids are super excited to have a garden again.

This year i only built three 4'x8' beds, 12" tall, but i have room inside our fence for 6 more if we want them in the future.

So....i was scouring the internet for ideas on how to build the beds etc. and ran across hugelkultur. Which is basically burying logs (firewood), limbs, grass, etc. in the ground and then covering with soil and planting on it. The claims center around water retention and improved soil quality (over time).

Anyone do this?

[matilda'skid]

I am trying it but I have a big pile and it is not all covered in dirt. I drug in some rotten wood from the ditch. I learned last year that copperhead mammas love rotten wood so get yours buried well. Click on the arrows to see snake surgery. I do think the rotten spongy wood would hold water but needs to be buried very well with good soil on top for the plants to grow in. My soil is rocks so it drains too well. As usual I do things spur of the moment style and probably what I did is not really hugelculture. <a href="http://s43.photobucket.com/user/span...ac6d6.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...ps919ac6d6.jpg" border="0" alt="eleven babies photo snakesurgery016_zps919ac6d6.jpg"/></a>

[drew51]

I sort of use the principal. I have huge branches from a tree in my yard I prune every year, and old scrape 2x4's non treated. A few woody shrubs I removed. I added all this wood to line the bottom of my raised beds.
Here's the beds with the initial planting of raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries. Photo from 2013 06 24.



Here it is on 2013 08 15

[ExpendableZero]

Doesn't decomposing wood rob the soil of nitrogen? Isn't that why we sift the wood chips out of our compost?

[harleysilo]

From what I've read you can expect that for a year or two, but at some point the decaying wood gives it back to the soil. Again just what I've read so far.

[matilda'skid]

I don't think I would try it close to the house because of termites and I think it would work better out in the country which is where I live. I have a big pile which I was adding to last year and I did put some topsoil over it, but not enough. I think I have built a wonderful habit for creatures so I am rethinking my nonplan. I have plenty of wood that has been piled in a ditch from friends' yards in town after all the ice storms we have had. I have lots of rocks and thin soil so I am going to keep trying, but switching to a smaller scale that I can bury completely.
The copperhead was not actually in the wood pile. It was on the side of my raised bed made from oak blocks which had started to decay. When I looked it up that is exactly where they choose to have babies.
https://www.google.com/search?q=huge...w=1024&bih=644

[MB3MB3]

from what I have seen at one of the lots of the the comm gardens, the first few years can also pose difficulties for root veg. not sure how long this will last, but eventually it has to be better than the native heavy clay soil around here, just a bit of break-in period (same with nitro mentioned above, not sure but maybe dealt with adding hummonia and not fully matured nitro-heavy compost?).

[Worth1]

High there long time no see.

I dug a huge hole 4x12x2feet deep and filled it with fire wood sticks and decomposed leaves.
I then put a 4x12x12inch raised bed over it.

This is the second year not for sure how well it is going to turn out but I need to add more soil as it has shrunk.
The onions seem to be doing ok and have not tried tomatoes yet in it.

No water problems as far as a lake is concerned.


Worth

[Ken4230]

Originally Posted by Worth1

High there long time no see.

I dug a huge hole 4x12x2feet deep and filled it with fire wood sticks and decomposed leaves. I then put a 4x12x12inch raised bed over it. Worth

You're going to love it, Worth.

I did almost the same thing several years ago. I used a backhoe to dig a 2'x2'x18' trench. I built a 3'x20' bed out of four 20' pressure treated 2x12's that i got from work. I laid about a foot and a half of green pine branches in the bottom, covered the 2x12's with plastic and dumped at least a dozen loads of scrapings from a feed lot in and on top of it. You couldn't even see the 2x12's. Best garden spot i have ever had.

It was close behind the house and i used it to grow stuff we ate every day. I used about 3' of it to grow parsnips. They were huge.

Ken

[harleysilo]

Don't have a picture of the layer of old wet leaves i dumped in prior to putting in the soil. The soil it self is 1/3 native clay, 1/3 Mushroom compost that was still composting, and 1/3 store bought garden soil. Probably could have used more wood. 1/2 the logs were 5 year old rotten, half were fresh cut bradford pear, small sticks was all fresh cut bradford pear.

Gave it a good soaking and we'll see if it behaves any different than the other two beds not filled with firewood.

[Redbaron]

Last year my Hugelkultur bed did quite well. But I did a hybrid system. First I laid in the branches, limbs, bark and other woody material, then I packed it with horse manure. Then I covered it with soil. That's what I built my cold frame over, hoping the whole thing would heat up. Then after I took down my cold frame, I planted melons. They grew crazy.

[drew51]

It's a great way to recycle, and I have had no nitrogen problems. I will always do this with new beds. I never thought of digging down a little, that is even better! I'm putting in 3 small beds, sort of an extention to existing beds, and I will dig them out first, cool!

[Tracydr]

I haven't tried hogelkultur this year but I really believe that it could work well. This spring I planted a bunch of hibiscus where we used to have a row of palm trees. The palm stumps had disintegrated to an amazing black soil. Where there hadn't been a palm, the soil was my usual dense, hard,red clay.