I live in a very dry and windy area. I did an above ground huglekulture my first year here and it did very poorly. This will be the fourth season coming up and I am taking it out. The wind (even though it is protected on two sides by a corner fence) blows off any covering or moisture it receives. The plants struggle and usually end up dead or don't produce any fruit. I did 4 beds last year by burying the huglekulture and it worked very well. In fact, I still had cherry tomatoes going in one bed when I decided to end my season and stop watering. The tomatoes kept producing for a month and a half more with absolutely no rain and my squash leaves were larger than my head when before they were about the size of my hand.
For my area it comes down to one thing. Burying the bed and putting a high border around it keeps the wind off. This is the most important thing I can do. I depends on the area, so you can't say that one way is better than the other. One way just works better than the other given the environment. The best advice I can give from my experience is to try 3 or 4 different styles and see which works best for your given section of land and garden.
Sounds like a great idea, but I wonder if it would work in all climates. I would love to hear some ideas on what zones you think it would work best in. Possibly there are some people on the forums that have this sort of thing happening for them already? Also, do you think it would be possible to do in a scaled-down environment as in urban permaculture?
Purely the cost. I am currently living off student loans and won't have an income until (hopefully) this time next year.
We ended up shooting a lot of the birds and killing many with a bb gun during the spring and this kept them off the fruit thus far. However, I did lose a lot of plants to them. Pepper plants were gone as soon as they were 5" tall and several other plants were beaten down just as they began to sprout.
Wonderful information, Paul. Hopefully this will go viral on youtube. However, I have to say the best part of this video (for me) is the PROOF, yes PROOF, that it doesn't take us women 5 minutes to go to the bathroom!! Best myth buster yet!
They varied from 6 weeks to 4 months depending on the seed. They were very specific with the stratification information sent with the seeds and I followed it to the "T". This year I am repurchasing the seed and I will put it in the ground in the fall for natural stratification. I couldn't do it this year as I purchased my seed in January. Thank goodness it's not too expensive!
I had the same issue with the seeds I bought that needed stratification. Though my seeds are not the same as yours. Not a single one of them grew. I am repurchasing a lot of them this fall and I will put them in the ground then. The whole refrigerator thing just did not work on them.
Hawthorn
Blackcap Raspberry
Bush Cherry
American Blackcurrant
I would love to grow some of these and since Tyler posted that means they will do well in my heavy clay soil. Do they need full sun or partial sun? I have one more full sun location left to dig and the moth beans will need a friend there.
What is done with the mushrooms after they have grown and soaked up all these toxins? Can they be kept on site and composted or will that just re-leach the toxins back into the soil. Would you then have to dispose of them at a land fill?
