Creating a Hugelkultur Bed

Below are some photos of a new hugelkultur bed we are creating. The bed is actually an
expansion of a berry bed. The ground to the left of the first photo is where I have baby blueberry
bushes. The ground to the right is a path and then a second and established berry bed.We are
widening the berry bed and narrowing the path to make room for more green chile plants. For
us, hugelkultur is a way to grow in areas that most would never consider use-able. I hope by
learning to grow in marginal areas I can share what I find with others and also provide
encouragement to others.
Sean is digging the trench where we are putting the Hugelkultur bed. We do not till Jill found her own way to dig. S
our soil. But when we are establishing hugelkultur beds in very poor areas where
there is only heavy clay or mostly subsoil, we've found that double digging the bed We experimented before deciding to do
before adding the rotted logs, twigs, trimmings, grass clippings, pulled weeds and four beds and double dug two before ad
kitchen scraps works much better. simply heaped the rotted wood and rest
heap with soil. I think because we mus
Sean decided to get a little ahead in his Spanish and listened to a Pimsleur and subsoil, the double dug beds did no
Spanish lesson while he worked. He kept repeating the Spanish words aloud while ever again. They will remain strictly no
he dug. The ditch ended up being about 22 feet long and about 3 feet wide and 22 microbes will live happily ever after.
inches or more deep.

In this first photo you are facing east. The photos do not show that this is a fairly
decent slope.
A curious spider found his way into our way! Its a bad photo but if you notice the
shovel you can see our curious spider ws fairly large AND you can see that the soil
is very much red clay. You can also see that intrepid bermuda that tries to take over
At the top of the hill we struck halfway
everything. Some spots in our yard are so bad that not even bermuda will grow!
is no need to dig into good dirt. We c
and mi
 The rotted stump in the previos photo
Michael, holding an ax, is down in the forest area behind our gardens, gathering other felled tree is about 20 feet long.
rotted wood. You can't tell very well but he's standing inside half of a fallen tree hurricane. Typically we try to take ma
that had an orginal diameter of more than 45 inches. (Michael is 6' 2'' inches tall so branch where they will wash away othe
this stump is VERY large!) I am standing about 40 feet away and shooting this havens in the dog's daytime 1/2 acre do
with a zoom. slopes down into one of our dry branch
gardens. You are facing north in the ph
Jill is watching her dad pile up the rotted logs. These logs crumble fairly easily in
our hands. If I had a better camera, close up you would see that these are full
of mycorrhizal hyphae.

To the right you can see that Sean is gathering the wood and transporting it to the
beds. The photo shows that Sean is standing in the ditch up to about his knees. He's
nearly 6 feet tall. Those rocks, by the way, will be part of the border around the bed
when we are finished.
 I like to put part of the rotted logs in, then put the rest of the yard refuse Michael is viewing the results so far to
such as twigs, trimmings, grass clippings, etc in next and then top that him is a baby blueber
off with more rotted logs. Michael cleaned the gutters which were
full of acorns. He emptied four large black garbage bags full of acorns and leaves If you are new to gardening and
from the gutters down into the bed too. The rotted logs, twigs, leaves, kitchen the rotted material brings mycorrhizal
scraps and weeds piled to about place for all the rest of the beneficial m
22 inches deep. provides
After the second layer of rotted logs, Sean is putting in grass We also added green mat
clippings and then leaves. LOTS of leaves. We added a good bit of kitchen dreadful ground ivy, pulled and ready t
vegetable scraps in as well. leaves and add kitchen compost too.
lighten the pho
Sean is my chile relleno and stuffed sopaipilla nut. He's a vegetarian so I make a
mean green chile stew with potatoes and beans for him that he just loves to eat. He We haven't decided yet whether we'll
always works hard but he's very motivated to get this bed done as it is slated for top left of this photo. I don't think it
green chiles! grow
I thought you'd like to see what we get in the way of results. I took a little red clay The bed pictured above was established
from the bed we just started and placed it on top of a finished bed we did two years the left and sits adjacent to it. But we d
ago, for contrast. We keep the finished bed well mulched and I grew red clover in keep it mulched and we did grow red c
it last winter. Look at the difference! the contrast.

We mixed amendments into the soil that we've removed from the trench. I would We're not finished! In the spring the b
normally mix in some finished compost but I have none right now. I mixed rock we'll plant is pots! To help ensure our
phosphate, calcium, lime, green sand and sand into the soil before we pulled the - 8 inch or larger paper mache' pots usi
soil, all 22 or so inches, back over the pile. The last step was planting the entire not sturdy ones but ones with just enou
bed in rye. I chose rye because of the steep slope, hoping to prevent erosion. The pots with soil and compost and then pla
rye will help the materials in the bed degrade, keep the soil from washing away and so do the materials in the hugelkultur b
bring some much needed nitrogen into the soil. Below is a not very helpful photo of the pots and into the beds and beds wil
how far we are now with the rye seed scattered on the mound. The mound, BTW,
will in time level out as the wood decays.

The first year you should not expect a

 year and every year after that as long a
compost and keep them well mulched o
them. Organic gardening is about long

I covered the entire 22 foot area so that birds won't eat my seed. I buy sheer drapes
at the thrift store for a dollar for this purpose, or I use burlap, cardboard and, rarely,
plastic.

Hugelkultur is in a way like growing on top of compost piles. We also do that. Another problem with growing near th
Below are our latest compost piles just getting started. We use this method because quickly, making the soil in this area dry
we have little room for our plants and must find as much growing space as
possible. These bins sit just outside of a dripline of a very large white oak as well Below is a photo of the top of one of la
as next to our forest. The bins will get about 14 hours of sun a day but the ground growing in the top. The potatoes are ju
is full of oak roots, making the area nearly impossible to grow in. By filling each finger on Jan 12th). I can easily cover
bin with compostable materials and then topping them with soil, we can grow two.
potatoes. As the compost degrades, the level lowers and we can mulch the
potatoes, encouraging a better crop.

Dogwoods line the fence behind the bins and their roots also compete in this spot; I
don't want to cut my dogwoods down!
To help hold moisture in the bins, I plan to slide plain cardboard in along the sides I'm thinking I could perhaps grow som
to line the inside sides of each bin. My husband can bring a lot of cardboard home or perhaps peas, bean or cucumbers an
and we use it as fast as he finds it. use that nice verticle space, that's for ce

I put about 3 inches of newspaper under each pile. This kept the roots of the trees
out of the piles last year and I hope will do so again this year!
If you have gotten this far, I have a fav
Around the borders of each bin I planted Fava Beans just to see if I could improve made any factual errors on this page. I
the soil a little. ideas. And if you'd like to ask more, p

laurabrownmckenzie ["at" symbol] att.

[I post my email address this way to pr

spammers to use. Thanks!]