Hugelkultur over Stumps.

You're never the only one to think of something.
I've not heard of this yet, maybe for good reason, maybe it doesn't work, that's why.
My mom asked me the best way to get rid of a stump and my condescending thought bubble came up ("I would see it as a challenge, grab one shovel, one axe, and conquer"!)
I told her "I don't know" because I have my own stumps to deal with.

Then in my incessant quest for knowledge I stumbled upon hugelkulture.
Then I used my permaculture mind and thought, hmm, why not purposefully grow trees, harvest the young wood, then plant a "hugel potted plant".
Instead of a giant mound, where you have to cart things around, and dig a giant trench, why not build circles.

Now let me elaborate.

Hugel over the stump, then plant a tall growing plant in the middle, let's call it a tomato.
On the outer edge do an herb, or two, let's call them basil, and oregano.
Then a pest control flower on the sides.
Give it a slight slope to the south.
On the north facing side put your favorite "mulch" "green manure" so that part way through the season you have your fee mulch right there.
Lastly dig a moat (I'm not saying swale) 3/4 of the way around the north side.

Just think how stable you could have a stake in a stump, before you pile on the manure and carbon.

I'll bet someone else has already thought of and done this, but I'm bout to go try, so good luck folks I'll be back.

If she doesn't go for the hugelkultur project, there's another option for stump removal using good ol' fire.

could use mushrooms. they eat dead wood. Drill holes into it and pack down spores and see what happens. At worst, nothing will happen.
I'd use hugelkulture if it was a good spot for hugelkulture. Or a compost heap.

Basically you want the stump to return to being a productive element in your system. There are many ways to do that which don't require much work.

I would only take a stump out if I really needed to reclaim that piece of ground. I've done it in a small yard where space was an issue and I had a magnolia that kept sprouting and creating a bush. Lots of digging and cutting, but I got it out. Wouldn't do it again unless really necessary.

If it's just dead and nothing's coming up from it, you could also just choose to grow around it. In time the spot will become something else.

Also, dead wood that is not breaking down needs nitrogen to break down.

Fire is an option, but why waste good carbon?
W

Let's call it a butternut squash.



My neighbor had a big dead snag next to his driveway that had to come down. I was happy to take all that rotted wood (and he was happy to get rid of it), so I planted some butternut squash there for him. Seems to be doing quite well.

We have 6 stumps along the north side of our house in Northern Bulgaria (very close to our septic line) so we didn't want to pull the stumps out. We've inoculated all the stumps with mushroom spores and built hugelkulture type mounds about 1.5m high between the stumps using dead wood and wood we have culled from our overgrown property. We are not actually going to be living on the property full-time until late 2014/early 2015 so the hugelkulture mounds are covered in plastic and I hope to plant them on our next visit (early spring 2014).