Jor Bib

Thank you ALL for sending me advice. I appreciate your efforts and opinions! So many things I am glad you brought up that I had not considered. 🍀🌼

I wanted to thank you for responding to each of my big questions. I did want to clarify yes it is 5' at the top of my area not 5"! Ha

I wanted to note, in regards to space around the hugel, I have access to my gardening equipment with the rest of my yard so I don't need to consider any traffic other than garden traffic around the bed. I can't believe I didn't think of just lying sticks out to see how much space "felt comfortable". But I agree with your suggestion on allowing more than less to be safe.

I was also wondering about maximizing sunlight and planting space. Like you mentioned, should I just keep a flat bed or a hill to maximize sunlight? I'm terrible with spacial estimations and I'm unsure-- which option (flat versus hill) would get more sun(will the bed be shading itself?) And would I maximize planting space by building a hill or by keeping a flat raised bed? Any suggestions in your opinion?

Thanks so much everyone for reading and taking the time to respond!!

I'm so glad I stumbled on this forum. I have been researching hugelkultur (and hugelbeets) trying to decide what type of foundation to put on my new property. I have monitored the sunlight and realized many of the plants I simply put down on our current soil just aren't getting enough light. So I'd like to creat hugels next to my house. It's the only spot in our yard that gets 6+ hours of sun a day. (I live in zone 6). So here are my primary questions

1)I can build my beds N-S, so that should be good, correct?
2) I only have a narrow space to plant between our arborvitae and our house. The space is 15' long and at the top 5'' wide but opens at the bottom to be 7'.
a) Is this space better suited for a simple small hugel or a big pile? I was thinking a bigger hugel might provide me with more area to plant?
b) How much space should I leave on each side of the beds so I can harvest?
3) what happens years down the road to a hugel? Will I ever dig it up and restart and have to deal with getting rid of excess soil?