Congrats on joining us Hugel-freaks.
Most of the beds on our urban farm are Hugeled from free wood and horse manure to help with the nitrogen robbing - lots of horse manure!
The parking strip is a raised hugel bed, we dug down, buried the wood in horse manure and the removed dirt, then muched it with straw from a neighbor who had given me a couple of bales 2 years earlier. I thought the bales had mulch down a bit over time, but in the 3 years since I get 2 crops of wheat from the original 1/2 bale that I mulched with. It's all good though because all of the animals love the wheat grass that I cut for them.
We also Hugeled the raised bed to the north of our pond in the front yard (free dead hot tub) that catches rainwater overflow from the rain tank, into the pond, into the bed (Blueberries), that then flows into a swale that irrigates trees, herbs and veggies that grow around the north and east end of thee yard.
Our back yard has 2 hugels that a 3' tall (framed in with old doors, 2 vertical hugels (standing pallets with wood,
compost and bunny manure inside, and 4 raised beds done in an exxagerated key hole design for blackberries and vegetables. I'm also putting in a really long hugel on the wall for a fruit tree orchard.
All of this on .15 acre city lot, with a house, garage, green house, and chikee (combined rabbit/chicken shelter for 4-20 rabbits and 10 chickens). As you can tell, we love them. Mainly due to hot, harsh summers and cold wet winters. The snow and rain that we recieve is seldom during the growing season, so this is kinda like a "rechargable battery for growing". That's how I sold my hubby on putting in the effort to help me build them - well that and the local water bill from my very prductive garden the previous summer. Needless to say, once sticker shock wore off, he was ready to embrace my crazy idea. And youtube videos of the great Sepp Holzer.
If anyone is having an issue with productivity, compost and mulch seem to be key maintaining fertility in these beds. I'm thinking the next one I do, I'm going to add a worm feeding tube to include vermicomposting to increase nutrient availability.