hugelculture experiment

[4season]

A couple of years ago I heard about hugelculture and decided to make a small modified test. Instead of a pile of logs covered in soil ,I dug a hole , filled it with wood, and made a raised bed over it. Seems to be growing well but recently it smells like sauteing mushrooms when the weather is humid.

[HydroExplorer]

Nice.

I like hugelkultur but if you screw it up it's screwed up pretty badly. I did one right and one wrong. I'm having similar results out of the one I did right. The one I did wrong is a desert basically.

I actually use the technique I did to make the bad hugel bed to intentionally create a nitrogen desert to kill weeds. I wiped out a serious Canada thistle infestation when I tested it. Nothing grows there

[Darren Abbey]

HydroExplorer: How did you screw up the desertified one?

[Worth1]

If conditions are right and you have a few million years to spare you will have coal.

Worth

[HydroExplorer]

Originally Posted by Darren Abbey

HydroExplorer: How did you screw up the desertified one?

I put wood chips under compost but on top of wood. It'll get better. I'm going to inoculate it with oyster mushrooms to make it spongy (in theory) and then feed it nitrogen to theoretically activate the mushrooms.

The moral of the story is that you never want to put wood chips throughout a bed. On top is good. Within is real bad

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by HydroExplorer

I put wood chips under compost but on top of wood. It'll get better. I'm going to inoculate it with oyster mushrooms to make it spongy (in theory) and then feed it nitrogen to theoretically activate the mushrooms.

The moral of the story is that you never want to put wood chips throughout a bed. On top is good. Within is real bad

Mix the wood chips with manure and soil. Not only does the manure provide nitrogen, it also will explode the methanotroph community in the hugelkultur bed. Methanotrophs "eat" methane and as a side effect also fix nitrogen as a waste product, which of course is absorbed by the wood creating more decay. That's how a proper hugelkultur bed works when in balance. of course over that mix then plain fertile soil.

It is possible to put ramial wood chips within a hugelkultur bed, but never underestimate the amount of manure required if you decide to do that.

PS adding nitrogen directly doesn't work as well, because it reduces your methanotroph community instead of exploding it.

[HydroExplorer]

Thx for the tip. I haven't put nitrogen in the bed yet. I'm waiting for my oyster mushroom starts to be ready. My plan was to sew oyster mushrooms into the wood because they break wood down into that slimy water-holding wood. I was also going to use comfrey leaves as a nitrogen source but I was thinking I would add that topically.

I don't have a source of manure. I live in a suburb that isn't near farms. I guess I do have 2 coworkers that have horses. Maybe I can work something out. Organize a "bring poo to work" day

Another thing I was thinking of doing was to just have the township bring a few truckloads of leaf mulch and just bury the bed entirely. That isn't huglkultur at that point. It's a dead bed so that might just be my best option.

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by HydroExplorer

Thx for the tip. I haven't put nitrogen in the bed yet. I'm waiting for my oyster mushroom starts to be ready. My plan was to sew oyster mushrooms into the wood because they break wood down into that slimy water-holding wood. I was also going to use comfrey leaves as a nitrogen source but I was thinking I would add that topically.

I don't have a source of manure. I live in a suburb that isn't near farms. I guess I do have 2 coworkers that have horses. Maybe I can work something out. Organize a "bring poo to work" day

Another thing I was thinking of doing was to just have the township bring a few truckloads of leaf mulch and just bury the bed entirely. That isn't huglkultur at that point. It's a dead bed so that might just be my best option.

I never tried comfrey in a hugelkultur bed as a "green manure". It conceivably could work.

I have used ramial wood chips with horse manure. That certainly worked.

[HydroExplorer]

Well I will certainly trust your experience. I really like hugelkultur but I have only done these 2 beds. One worked, one didn't. I really like the bed that worked though. I don't need to fertilize, water or any of that. Lovin it