Somesh De Swardt

Hello Permies

I'm in the process of implementing a Hugelkultur system at a farm in the Eastern Part of Portugal's Algarve coast near Tavira. http://www.quintamar.com

The farm has an amazing Biopool that is totally awesome! But i'm really here to talk about Hugelkultur.

We had a storm a few weeks ago and a whole lot of brush and dead tress fell down, adding to this the annual prunings of the Olive and Almond trees, left piles of brush looking for someone to save them before they got burned by the local 'old school farmer'. Yes thats how they deal with excess here, burn it.

So my idea is to create a hugelbed mandala system around a small pond, and make it a healing, wellness nature area for the customers who come and visit the farm to hang out in a more private space thats not just the pool, but has some seclusion in amongst nature.

It gets really hot here in summer, and the summers are long and dry. Most rainfall is in the winter, peaking in december. Hopefully I can capture some of that rainfall in the hugelbeds before the tap stops. I aim to dig around 0.5m to 1m depending on how much labour is available for the task and whether the owner will pay for a small digger to come in.

I created a blog post around the project and will update it with a phase 2 post when its done. http://bit.ly/1rWJLFh

I have this Brugmansia in the garden. We have to remove it as its starting to affect the roof of a shed that its covering.
Just wondering if anyone knows if it can be used for mulch or say in a Hugelbed as its toxic and poisonous. If not do you burn it?

Thanks!

Thanks Justin.

I'm going to assume that wheatgrass is just the berries of Wheat, that is grown in trays until sprouted into small shoots. If however the shoots where planted out into soil and left to grow until proper wheat plant. Leaving the wheat plant to mature will create a sheath and inside the sheath will be the berries or seeds. Harvest these seeds and these will be your new wheatgrass seeds. I hope I've got that right, its always been a bit confusing to me.

Hello Permies

I am an avid enthusiast of wheatgrass, as a nutritional supplement and plant medicine. We have grown and harvested wheatgrass for a number of years and always purchased the seeds from a organic supplier. Since deciding to do everything possible to get more sustainable and less plugged in I've been searching for a solution for growing as much of what we consume as possible. Ive searched a lot on the internet but never found a solution for growing and harvesting wheatgrass seeds.

Anyone know what process to get wheatgrass seeds?

Thanks in advance.
Somesh