Build a Hugelkultur - PEP BB gardening.sand.hugelkultur

Here is my submission for Build a Hugelkultur - PEP BB gardening.sand.hugelkultur

To complete this BB, the minimum requirements are:
 - 7 feet tall, 7 feet wide, 6 feet long
 - mulch it with at least 4 different kinds of mulch
 - seed/plant at least a dozen different species
 - seeds are mostly nitrogen fixers (>75% by volume)
 - at least three comfrey plants
 - at least three sunchokes
 - at least a dozen sepp holzer grains (currently available as a prize for anyone who reaches BB20)

To document your completion of the BB, provide the following:
 - Two pics of the site before the work is started with the intended location marked out.
        - Probably marked with wood laid on the ground that will soon be buried!
 - Three pics of three different stages of construction - showing the contents of the hugelkultur
 - One pic when the hugelkultur is completely built but not planted or mulched proving it is 7 feet tall and 6 feet long
 - Pics of all the stuff about to be planted
 - A paragraph or two of what wood was used and where it came from, what was planted, what mulches were applied and anything else interesting
 - Two pics of the site after the work is complete from the same two locations as the beginning pictures.

This hugel was built over a few days during SKIP 2022. Wood used came from area conifer around Allerton Abbey at Wheaton Labs. I planted jerusalem artichoke (sunchoke), comfrey, Sepp Holzer grain, crimson, red, and rose clovers, field mint, common and hairy vetches, birdsfoot trefoil, field pea, daikon radish, and seed balls made at WL containing more clovers, vetches, cherry, apple, and sainfoin.

Mulching was accomplished with bark and branches from wood around AA, limbs from conifer, serviceberry, straw, and additional brush from the perimeter of the abbey.

Temperatures exceeded 100F throughout the endeavor.

Baby's first hugelkultur! I want a berm that will block out the sight and sound of my busy road so I'm testing the waters with a small hugelkultur placed strategically to block out the view of my yurt from the entrance to my driveway.
There were a few wood piles on my property when I bought it, they are what I used for the bulk of the inner material.  The site where the hugel will be also had a couple doug firs on it  so I cut them down and the stumps will be inside.
I'm planting comferey, sunchokes, walking onion, sepp holder grain, crimson clover(the vast majority of the seeds were this), lupins(next most abundant), kale, chives, spinach, thyme, arugula, sweet basil, cinnamon basil, two kinds of asparagus.
I mulched with woodchips, fir boughs, some tall grass that grows here, and broadleaf dock.
The hugel ended up being about 8x8x7 feet tall.  After having built it, even though it was difficult to make it to 7ft tall, when I expand it I want to make it even taller, as it doesn't quite block out the highway up on the hill where my yurt is.

Hugelkultur

If you need some inspiration, you should watch this video showing the hugel at wheaton labs!

check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roRaRDoObJE

I'm in the process of building my first Hugelkultur bed. I have a bunch of dead Aspen trees close by, so that's what I'm using for wood. I've seen a lot of pictures where the logs are laying cross ways to the bed. I'm wondering if it matters which direction the logs are stacked? Or should I stack them long ways and then short ways for the next layer? Thanks.

I was told that if you do them cross-ways they won't roll off one another as you aim for that super steep hugel Paul's after.  But it doesn't say you have to do it that way.  Be sure to get all your pictures as you do it!

Big day. This higel bed is finally complete!!

I haven't attempted this bb yet because of how rare and precious trees are here in the sagebrush dessert. But miracles do happen! My husband and I were given over 600 tree farm trees that were pulled out because of "defects". Cottonwood and spruce became the skeleton of my hugelbed, then. I also used little apple and apricot trees that does last year.

Before we started layering logs, we gave the hugel a "foundation" of stumps. What to do with 100 stumps?? Well, we buried them beneath the hugelbed site. Next, we covered them with the soil from the stump pit and began layering. We had to use soil from alongside the bed as we went, so trenches did develop on both sides of the bed.

When I planted the bed, I used this combination of seeds:
Flax,
Thyme,
Carrots,
Radishes,
Turnips,
Onions,
Basil,
Chives,
Dill,
Clover mix,
Kale,
Arugula,
Mustard greens,
Red clover,
Apple,
Pear,
Honey locust,
Calendula,
Beans,
Peas,
Sept holzer grains #42,
Lettuce

The clover mix was by far the majority of seeds. I also used comfrey cuttings, along with sunchoke tubers I saved since the winter.

The munches used were duck bedding (straw) rabbit bedding (sawdust) Cottonwood chips and spruce chips. I had to use branches stuck into the pile to catch the mulch to keep it from sliding off I to the trench. But in the end, I did get a lot of it to sick. I'm excited for all the food to come 😁

Oh, yes, I see you're right Jeremy. These photos also don't have great resolution, so it's hard to zoom in. It was dusk when I took them. I also got a new scratch in my phone case over the lens that day. And my helpers weren't tall enough to stand in the trench and hold a tape adequately.

How about I retake them in the day, with taller helpers, and the case off my phone? Because the beds are a little more than the required dimensions, all the way around.

I did the Build A Hugelkultur" at SKIP 2024 along with 5 other people.  I had the north end, so mine has a slight slant to it but did reach over 7' tall.  Some of the pictures so other builders, but they are working next to me and not on the same 6' wide section.  My son volunteered to hold the measuring tape for a few of us, so he may show up in more than one submission, but different segments of the (40-foot long) hugelkultur berm.

We layered wood we harvested from around the Lab, primarily pine snags that I cut to size, with scoops of dirt taken by an excavator and used a hand shovel to move.  

When finished and measured, I then planted with: Sweet Yellow Clover, Clover Mix, Austrian Winter Peas, Summer Alfalfa as my primary nitrogen fixing mix.  I also planted bush beans, scarlet beans, painted mountain corn, zea mays, millet, bok choi, turnip, and the requisite sepp holzer grains.  Also pictured are the Sunchokes and Comfry plants, I put one on each side since I had a sloping end.

I mulched with the pine bows I cut off the snags, as well as grass and some wildflower (mullein) around the hugel culture area, which covered over half of it.  I was asked to clear out part of a hugel in Allerton Abbey where I collected onions stalks and comfrey, and around the area or as I walked between I also harvested tansy, Clover, and more grasses (and an occasional dandelion).

Because of high heat and poor AQI Wednesday/Thursday, this project took almost 5 days to finish but really only about 10 hours of work with about 5 hours of tool gathering, transport, and kibitzing.

To complete this BB, the minimum requirements are:
 - 7 feet tall, 7 feet wide, 6 feet long
 - mulch it with at least 4 different kinds of mulch
 - seed/plant at least a dozen different species
 - seeds are mostly nitrogen fixers (>75% by volume)
 - at least three comfrey plants
 - at least three sunchokes
 - at least a dozen sepp holzer grains (currently available as a prize for anyone who reaches BB20)

To document your completion of the BB, provide the f ollowing:
 - Two pics of the site before the work is started with the intended location marked out.
        - Probably marked with wood laid on the ground that will soon be buried!
 - Three pics of three different stages of construction - showing the conte,nt,s of the hugelkultur
 - One pic when the hugelkultur is completely built but not planted or mulched proving it is 7 feet tall and 6 feet long
 - Pics of all the stuff about to be planted
 - A paragraph or two of what wood was used and where it came from, what was planted, what mulches were applied and anything else interesting
 - Two pics of the site after the work is complete from the same two locations as the beginning pictures.

*note: I couldn't get this many pictures to upload to the server - timeout messages three times!  And eaxh time I had to rewrite the descriptions for the pictures.  So I created a public Facebook Post and copied the link here:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/vtKx6ADc9gqmYPcY/