Hugelkultur: The Ultimate Raised-Bed Gardening ebook DRAFT

I skimmed it; most of this info I've heard Paul talk about before.  I like the section on toxic cardboard.  I've always seen this topic handwaved away "trust me it's toxic."  I wonder how much it would cost (or if it's possible) to have a few samples of cardboard tested for various toxins.

Image: Intro: What do they look like?: Giant Fucking Earthworm:

I give this DRAFT e-book 10 out of 10 acorns.

Hügelkultur: The Untimate Raised-Bed Gardening ebook DRAFT by Paul Wheaton is a fantastic reference for those interested in dabbling in hugelkultur!  It includes notes of what he will be changing/updating in the future.  My personal hugelkultur knowledge has doubled after reading it.  Paul covers many different shapes, sizes and materials to build your hugel with.  Various examples share what works, and why.  Numerous projects are cited with relevant information to include in my project that will ensure it's success.

Paul includes a number of topics that clarify the "why" of his instructions.  Why build a hugel in this manner?  Why use this wood and not that wood?  Why does it matter if I use this soil over that soil?  Why will I not need irrigation after my first couple years?  In this thought-provoking book, Paul encourages us to experiment with our own hugels to find what works best for us...a completely Permaculture way to go!

For anyone who wants to build with hugelkultur, this is a must-have book to learn about hugelkultur and keep for your future reference.

As many of us have heard, many others confuse hugelkulture with permaculture. You know hugelkulture and herb spirals and you’re doing it.

Sadly, some permaculturists with good intentions installed a hugelkulture bed in a demonstration garden in a public place.  The only problem is that we are in an arid climate, and it is near impossible to keep it watered.

It’s my opinion that in arid conditions the wood for the hugellkulture needs to be buried underground, then gardened on top of, or as a means of acidifying as well as moisturizing and fertilizing something like blueberries.

I’m hoping this information gets included in your book, so that the dry hugelkulture mound doesn’t get repeated enough times to become a bad example of how not to “hugelkulture”


Thanks

Thekla McDaniels wrote:As many of us have heard, many others confuse hugelkulture with permaculture. You know hugelkulture and herb spirals and you’re doing it.

Sadly, some permaculturists with good intentions installed a hugelkulture bed in a demonstration garden in a public place.  The only problem is that we are in an arid climate, and it is near impossible to keep it watered.

It’s my opinion that in arid conditions the wood for the hugellkulture needs to be buried underground, then gardened on top of, or as a means of acidifying as well as moisturizing and fertilizing something like blueberries.
Thanks

*Yes! I did my first hugelcultur berm two years ago. I dug at least a 18” down, filled it w logs & branches and then mounded leaves & soil on top. Let it sit one year & last year - after getting advice from all you Permies people - I planted it with a real mix of veggies to see what grew best…bush beans, kale, zucchini, pumpkins, tomatoes, milk thistle, peppers.
I agree that the top of the berm dries out & it needed some watering throughout the growing season. But I’m a fan of hugelcultur…it’s fascinating to create one, uses up logs & branches, and seems a healthy place to grow food. HARD work but worth it!

Gaurī Rasp wrote:*Yes! I did my first hugelcultur berm two years ago. I dug at least a 18” down, filled it w logs & branches and then mounded leaves & soil on top. Let it sit one year & last year - after getting advice from all you Permies people - I planted it with a real mix of veggies to see what grew best…bush beans, kale, zucchini, pumpkins, tomatoes, milk thistle, peppers.
I agree that the top of the berm dries out & it needed some watering throughout the growing season. But I’m a fan of hugelcultur…it’s fascinating to create one, uses up logs & branches, and seems a healthy place to grow food. HARD work but worth it!

That is so cool!  I'm glad to hear those did to good!  I'm slowly building a hugel with fallen branches, old dying sod clumps (with lots of dirt pieces), covering it with some compost, and connecting it to my drip irrigation temporarily (this year, maybe next year).  I also have a couple buckets of compost I'll throw on the wood before the sod.  We eat ragweed in our salads...because we used to be allergic...so I'm planting that, tomatoes, beans, and a bunch of other stuff to experiment.

Hi Everyone!

I am not American and I can't buy this ebook draft and other products. Is there a work around to this problem in general or should I just ask for other forum members to buy me X product, email it to me and I send them money somehow in return?

Zoltán Korbel wrote:Hi Everyone!

I am not American and I can't buy this ebook draft and other products. Is there a work around to this problem in general or should I just ask for other forum members to buy me X product, email it to me and I send them money somehow in return?

Hi Zoltan!  Welcome to permies!  Are you able to buy pie?  If so, you can give me 3 pieces of pie and I will buy the book as a gift and send you the code via purple moosage.  Thanks, Tina

Tina Wolf wrote:

Zoltán Korbel wrote:Hi Everyone!

I am not American and I can't buy this ebook draft and other products. Is there a work around to this problem in general or should I just ask for other forum members to buy me X product, email it to me and I send them money somehow in return?

Hi Zoltan!  Welcome to permies!  Are you able to buy pie?  If so, you can give me 3 pieces of pie and I will buy the book as a gift and send you the code via purple moosage.  Thanks, Tina

Allright, I'll send some pie your way Tina. Thanks for the advice!

Click on the thumbs up for this post if you would support a kickstarter making this book "a real book".  About 200 polished pages.  Printed (and ebook).  Maybe even an audiobook.

I vote for audiobook. Have you listened to/read the book Published by Chandler Bolt?
I think it will fill in the gaps of what you may have been missing in previous books, Paul. Best seller Hugel book!!? I can see it.
Self-publishingschool.com/friend is a free download

3 people bought the book and 4 people gave thumbs up.  Kinda hard to build a kickstarter with such low numbers!  :)

Hugelkulture is excellent!  I hope the book is a tremendous success.

I frequently come across misconceptions about hugelkulture in the desert.

A raised bed in an arid climate seems entirely inappropriate to me, as it requires MORE water, is almost impossible to maintain adequate moisture.  There is erosion down the sides, and plants don’t grow.  It’s a bare mound years later.  And seems “proof” that permaculture is sketchy st best.

I do hope you will include some reference to where hugelkulture is appropriate and where it isn’t, in your book!  A great way to teach the idea that what is best varies according to the local conditions!

In arid regions, the best plan is to bury the wood, dig a hole and fill with wood, then cover over with dirt and or soil.  I think a slight depression might even be an improvement on a mound or heap…

I encounter hugelkulture demonstrations that are the traditional mound shape.  The good people who installed them read it in a book, heard about it on line, took a class, and there is no way to convince them of the lack of fit.  

I feel I am continually beating the same drum. Somehow what people learn first, and from designated experts is what they stick with.

Best wishes on your project.

Hugels dont need to be 7ft high, the thing Ive found is to remember that you are trying to recreate a rain forest floor and its many layers of compost.  I have had great success in a semi arid environ with shovel dug trenches on contour filled with timber and covered in soil then a quick compost layer of lucerne and poo on top.
As to the drying out of the pile, Ive found that as the mound is being made a lot of effort must be put into eliminating air gaps in and around the timber and the soil must cover all wood to prevent moisture losses.
The other great thing is the north and south sides of the Hugel are two different climate zones, one side grows sweet potato and the other side daisys.

Hugels dont need to be 7ft high

I think that if somebody asks me, I will say "7 feet tall or taller".   My favorite hugelkulturs here are 11 or 12 feet tall.  And I agree with sepp holzer about a good, well placed, 15 foot tall berm with some hugelkultur flavoring.  

Less than 7 feet starts to lose the magic and superpowers of hugelkultur.   I suppose there can be a list of other things to compensate, or a bunch of conditions that would mitigate ...  

In general, my position is "7 feet minimum".  And there will be a lot of people that will hear that and make dismissive hand gestures in my general direction while they proudly make something 2.5 feet tall.  

on contour

I generally push for contra-contour.  The opposite of on contour.  On contour is a breeding ground for frost pockets and, therefore, short growing season.  And for me, I want to create a longer growing season.

Hey there Paul

Worked AOK here, too. Thanks for offering a great one-stop-shopping resource on Hugelkultur.

Please consider adding this to the .pdf version: It would be nice if the Table of Contents had hyperlinks to the related 'contents' of the book

Looks like I lost out on the $1 test run.

I am considering removing my inground pool.  I was wondering instead of filling the hole with "fill" could I fill it in with lumber, leaves and woodchips and the like? I could toss in all sorts of prunings and weed debris and keep it covered with the pool cover until full and broken down...  I've never considered this method before because there really was no place that I'd want a giant mound and the soil here is really quite fertile.  It's an 1850's homestead that had horses, cows, chickens, apple trees etc. on the one acre.

Kyle Knight wrote:I skimmed it; most of this info I've heard Paul talk about before.  I like the section on toxic cardboard.  I've always seen this topic handwaved away "trust me it's toxic."  I wonder how much it would cost (or if it's possible) to have a few samples of cardboard tested for various toxins.

I read the section on “TOXIC cardboard” and I have to say politely, that this is misinformation. The level of wrong is so wrong, that I barely know where to begin. So, first I will paste in a link to a post with links to various sources of information on corrugated cardboard in gardens. If you distrust industry, the links listed are outside organizations with goals similar to permies.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Permaculture/comments/1bp92jj/reuters_snopes_and_others_have_debunked_the_myth/

Now let me pick some particular misinformation from the article the book quoted:
1) Dioxins: These were an issue when chlorine bleaching was used to whiten paper, and was present in the rinse water drained from the pulp, leaving only traces in the pulp. EPA has been regulating dioxins in paper mill effluent since 1990. Manufacturers now use hydrogen peroxide which reacts with brown compounds and turns into water. So a) is your corrugated brown? No dioxin. b) Is it made in the last 20 years? No dioxin.

2) Formaldehyde: if you take wood and heat it to around 250F, it will release formaldehyde.  But fear of formaldehyde is one of those persistent fears generated by years and years of “telephone”.  I am retired from a research facility tasked with working in the public interest, and generating and evaluating peer reviewed science on wood, wood products, and materials used to manufacture products from forest resources, including wood and paper adhesives. The data used to label formaldehyde as possible carcinogen is based on a single study showing slightly elevated risk of nasal carcinoma in people working in processes with high levels of formaldehyde and no ventilation. Yet there was such a hue and cry in the media that agencies banned it “out of an abundance of caution”.  What this means in bureaucratese is somebody didn’t want to get called before congress and subjected to grandstanding attacks by elected representatives performing for the media, and for reelection.

The hue and cry came about because decades ago FEMA bought trailers for temporary housing using the cheapest materials in a hurry, then they sat in the heat and humidity all sealed up. At that time, particleboard used urea formaldehyde(UF) adhesive. It bonds sawdust well, it’s dirt cheap, can be made at the board plant by anybody-measure and stir 2 ingredients, spray it on, and hot press it. Voilà! Cheap and fast.  UF resin reacts with heat to bind, but with humidity and warm temperatures, the chemical bonds reverse to release urea and formaldehyde.  And if you heat sawdust in a hot press (like pressing board), it releases formaldehyde that is trapped inside the board and slowly diffuses out. But these details don’t fit in a sound bite, and cancer is scary. Have a reporter stand outside a building and intone a simple script with total confidence, and you get people screaming that “something must be done”. And now “everybody knows”, just like in the Middle Ages, when everyone knew that rags in the corner generated mice. Magic!

3) Sulfates: I will paste verbatim from a text on plant biochemistry “ Sulfate is an essential constituent of living matter.[…] it is present in the two amino acids cysteine and methionine, in the detoxifying agent glutathione, in various iron sulfur redox clusters, in peroxiredoxins, and in thioredoxins. Plants, bacteria, and fungi are able to synthesize these compounds by assimilating sulfate taken up from the environment. The animal metabolism is dependent on sulfur containing nutrients such as methionine and cysteine. Therefore, sulfate assimilation of plants is a prerequisite for animal life. “. Which is why calcium or ammonium sulfate are used to modify soil pH. Could sulfate in fiberboard change pH? Sure, but that isn’t toxicity. And sulfate rocks occur naturally, everywhere. And yet we exist side by side with them. If they were TOXIC, people would die, wouldn’t they?

4) Sodium hydroxide: pure NaOH is corrosive, and so are concentrated solutions, like lye used to make soap. It also reacts readily with acids where it is neutralized to water, and the salt of the neutralizing acid. In paper manufacturing, the NaOH is only a moderately concentrated solution. In the pulp it is heated under pressure to about 250F, and the corrosive hydroxide is consumed in breaking down the lignin. When the pressure is let off at the end of cooking, the water flashes to steam in the partially delignified wood chips, which, like beans in a pressure cooker, pop open. This slurry is drained, rinsed and only if needed, a small amount of acid neutralizes the pH to about 7.  This is the Kraft process used to make cardboard.

Sulfites, sulfides-not used in the Kraft process that makes corrugated. Because corrugated board is inexpensive yet strong packaging, and the Kraft process is the least expensive way to make strong pulp.  

Paraffin wax: do you drink milk out of polyethylene jugs? Paraffin wax is shorter chains of the same material. It also costs money, and is typically used to waterproof specialty packaging. And it looks different, so is easy to pull out, along with the boxes with colorful overlays, shiny surfaces… Printing inks from the US in the last 20 or more years do not use heavy metals, and are now based on soy oil.  

Need I go on? The author of this piece has read material he doesn’t understand, and like some people when can only see things as good or bad, has manufactured outrage at “chemicals”. It would be like someone who goes in the woods and ends up with poison ivy assuming the woods are poisonous.  Or saying potatoes and tomatoes are poisonous because they’re in the same family as nightshade.

I’m not arguing for indiscriminate spreading of corrugated everywhere. I merely asking for recognition of nuance, and begging Paul to please not use that article as a basis for decision making.