Roots in a hugel

I just finished my first hugelkultur beds. More coming. I would like to grow root vegetables like beets and radishes. Has anyone had trouble with the roots crashing into the logs underneath and inhibiting hrowth? Do i need to put a lot of extra soil in?

Hi Randy - I had root crops in my mini hugel in my not-GAMCOD bed this year. They didn't do well - I think just because the soil and the weather were rather rubbish - but I did get some lovely long roots on my parsnips.

I suspect that you will need enough soil depth to accomodate the length of root you are expecting. It will be a few years vefore the logs at the centre are truly feeding the soil depending on your climate. It should get better year on year. But yes plants grow in soil not wood :)

2 years ago I did a sort of mini hugel with potatoes & carrots.  They all did well enough, but that was about the only way I could get some loose soil for root crops to actually grow in the hard soil I had at the time.  The downside, is with so much woodchips, bark chips, & old straw mixed in, it was a haven for insects like pill bugs, centipedes, crickets, etc. I ended up losing a third of my potatoes & all of my carrots to bug damage where they were eaten underground, then rotted as I cured them.  Not sure if this helps or not, but I always have to try something myself to see how my gardening style, pests, & rain patterns affect things in my area.  In this case, the plants were healthy above ground, but I had no idea they looked like Swiss cheese below ground.  Give it a try, you won't know for sure until you do.  Unless you are growing long radishes, they mature very quickly, and stay fairly shallow, so you should be ok there.  Beets go a bit deeper, but might still work fine if picked young.  I bet it can be done, Good luck!

It depends...how much soil / soft material do you have on top of the wood?  If it's relatively thin, I expect you'd have more difficulty.  If the soil / dirt on top is deep enough, you should be fine.  There are other plants that will have deeper and / or broader root systems than many root crops which could actually help tie the hugel together.

There are also variety selections and growing styles you could consider.  For instance, 'Paris market' carrots are relatively short and round and should do better in less soil than an imperator type that is long and thin.  Cylindra beets are long, but much of them grows above ground, so they may also be OK.  I'd imagine radishes should be fine.  Potatoes could be grown - if you're concerned about digging them out later, perhaps the Ruth Stout method with setting the seed potato on the ground, then covering with thick straw or hay could work.

We made raised beds in a hugelkultur style and the carrots and radishes did fine (I don't recall whether we tried beets in the early days).  With it being soft and fluffy on top, some of the radishes had over a foot of total root that pulled out.  We probably had a good foot of topsoil / compost at the top as a starting point.

If you do give it a shot, one thing to notice at harvest is whether your carrot roots forked - if so, they encountered something hard and went around it.  In ground, that is often a stone, but could be a root or chunk of wood or something similar.  That said, roots are powerful.  If they have a crack to get into, they can work themselves into your wood in the hugel and can hasten the breakdown of that chunk.  Of course, that could make harvesting a root more challenging.

We helped a bit with the Boots GAMCOD harvest at Wheaton Labs in September.  Among other things, we harvested potatoes and sunchokes.  

If in doubt, and not particularly adventurous, plant above-ground crops or cover crops for a year or two to help develop the soil before switching over to root crops.  That said, I'd keep the permaculture principle about multiple yields in mind, so something you can use, pollinator support, or beauty could be valid yields while helping to build the soil.

Good luck.

Yes, you should be okay with small radishes and those grown for their pods, but no luck for me with beets, although parisienne carrots (little balls like a radish) will do really well too

Nancy Reading wrote:Hi Randy - I had root crops in my mini hugel in my not-GAMCOD bed this year. They didn't do well - I think just because the soil and the weather were rather rubbish - but I did get some lovely long roots on my parsnips.

I suspect that you will need enough soil depth to accomodate the length of root you are expecting. It will be a few years vefore the logs at the centre are truly feeding the soil depending on your climate. It should get better year on year. But yes plants grow in soil not wood :)

Thank you.

Cy Cobb wrote:2 years ago I did a sort of mini hugel with potatoes & carrots.  They all did well enough, but that was about the only way I could get some loose soil for root crops to actually grow in the hard soil I had at the time.  The downside, is with so much woodchips, bark chips, & old straw mixed in, it was a haven for insects like pill bugs, centipedes, crickets, etc. I ended up losing a third of my potatoes & all of my carrots to bug damage where they were eaten underground, then rotted as I cured them.  Not sure if this helps or not, but I always have to try something myself to see how my gardening style, pests, & rain patterns affect things in my area.  In this case, the plants were healthy above ground, but I had no idea they looked like Swiss cheese below ground.  Give it a try, you won't know for sure until you do.  Unless you are growing long radishes, they mature very quickly, and stay fairly shallow, so you should be ok there.  Beets go a bit deeper, but might still work fine if picked young.  I bet it can be done, Good luck!

Yes same for me. The varmints didn’t even leave enough to share with me!  This was also grown in my hugel beds.