"HUGELKULTUR", Raised Bed Experiment

  A month back I was searching around on the internet reading about different gardening techniques and I ran across two forms that I had little knowledge on. The first I wrote about a while back called "Back to Eden, Gardening Gods Way" and the other was called "Hugelkultur". I was very interested in both, and both in their own rights are kind of the same concept, but also very different. So what is the method called Heugelkulur?

  Hugelkultur is an ancient form of sheet composting developed in Eastern Europe. The German word - hügelkultur translates as "hill culture". It uses woody wastes such as fallen logs, pruned branches, ect in order to build soil fertility and improve drainage and moisture retention. If you walk through a natural woodland, you will see many fallen logs and branches on the ground. The older these logs are, the more life they sustain. A log that has rested on the forest floor for five or ten years will be covered in moss, mushrooms, wildflowers and even young trees. Poke at it a little and you will notice that the decaying wood is damp in all but the most vicious of droughts. Hugelkultur is designed to take advantage of the natural fertility and moisture-conserving qualities of rotting wood, while speeding the process of decomposition up. The heat produced by decomposition also helps protect cold-sensitive plants.

Before Starting!

  Well I thought this was pretty neat! I am going to experiment with this in one of my "Raised Beds". It would achieve a few thing: get rid of old limbs and brush that I needed to do something with and it would save time, compost and money to fill up the new raised bed that I had built.

  I gathered woody waste materials such as dead logs, extra firewood, pruned and clipped branches, and more. The wood can be either rotting or fresh, although already rotting wood decomposes fastest, so mix it up on new and old!
  In the bottom of the bed, I did lay down a news paper and some compost (about 2 inches). Then I just started layering in all of the above, many different sizes until I reached about 6 inches from the top. You need at least 6 inches of dirt on the top to plant in.

Image 2

Finished Project

  

   

Different Stages

  In Image 2 I put the news paper and horse manure in the bottom, to encourage the worms! You can't tell because (silly me got ahead of himself and didn't that a picture between image 2 and the finished project) but i packed the wood of all sizes in as tight and full as I could possibly get them. I keep getting on top and crushing them down with my body weight. Then I covered the wood with other compost materials such as autumn leaves, grass clippings, garden wastes, and manure. (This stage is optional if you aren't planning to plant the bed immediately.) I covered the wood with a few inches of composted horse manure. Then before I plant I will finish it of with regular compost.

  I am gonna plant immediately or you can let the bed sit for awhile to rot. Among the plants known to do well in HugelKultur beds are shade plants, squash, melons, lettuce and a number of different species of berries. Other gardeners plant the bed with cover crops for the first year to improve the fertility even more before adding vegetables or other plants.

 Other ways that can give you similar results, though much more slowly, by simply burying logs and other wood waste in trenches around your yard in areas where you want to improve fertility and moisture control.

In swampy areas, buried logs will suck up significant quantities of water quickly and release them slowly, reducing the chance of standing water or flooding. I actually have an area right along the railroad track that gets standing water in that I will probably try this in. In drier areas, the logs will act in the same way, releasing stored water slowly into the surrounding soil and reducing the need to water. So before you burn, bury!

2 Different styles of Beds

Other good information sources: (You can type in your search "Hugelkulter Beds") or:

http://www.appropedia.org/Hugelkultur

Eight Acres Blog spot

Permaculture Articles, Have many great visual drawings, pictures and assembly videos.

Little House in the Suburbs (good example of a trench bed)

http://saponaria-wortsandall.blogspot.com/2008/07/hugelkultur-compared.html

Some people even use round bale hay for a starter!

 This Post is linked with:
Homestead Revival: Barn Hop #54
The Morris Homestead Barn Hop
White Wolf Summit Farmgirl
Chicken on the Moon: Tuesday Greens

Proof that God never needed us:

Genesis 2:5 "And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground."