Is there a substitute for straw on a hugelkultur bed?

Hi! I’m completely new to hugelkultur and gardening in general. I have so much to learn, it’s a bit overwhelming. We just bought 25 acres that also came with an alpaca. (We bought 2 more, so now have 3.) I was reading how good alpaca manure is for gardening, but then ran across some information regarding Grazon (aminopyralid). The previous owner was baling the back 10 acres and had sprayed the area with Grazon last year. He was feeding the baled hay to the alpaca. My research leads me to believe that most all hay or straw that is baled and sold in my area, as well as most other surrounding areas, has generally been sprayed as well. So, now I’m unsure what is safe to use. I would love to try a hugelkultur bed, as we have tons of dead wood lying around and a huge dead tree that needs to come down. But have read so many horror stories of Grazon contaminated straw/manure destroying peoples’ gardens/soil. Does anyone have any advice? Is there a substitute for straw on top of a hugelkultur bed? Any help greatly appreciated!

Sorry to hear about your herbicide issue, that's a real bummer. Around here we can occasionally get organic rice and/or organic wheat straw, but its expensive. You could always cut your own out of the pasture, probably cut to feed to the alpacas and then use the soiled leftovers as a mulch. You could also just seed a cover crop onto the hugel and then use a chop and drop approach for mulching going forward.

As far as other potential sources of mulch for your hugel, woodchips are always an option. Lawn mower clippings can work but can be kind of hard to work with in my experience. And even shrub or small tree prunings or windfall can work, especially if they have thiin stems and are leafy when cut.

Straw works as a cover for hugel beds but really any organic mulch is fine. I was just putting a bunch of old tree branches over the top of one of my hugel beds. The key is to get the soil covered. If you broadcast seed the top of the hugel beds before mulching then I would make sure to use a light mulch--branches could be a great option for this. That way the seeds can still germinate and grow through the mulch.

I often use woodchips on mine too but on my taller ones I've noticed the birds kick down the woodchips by scratching around looking for bugs. So I've now switched to covering the bare areas with chop-and-drop material from around my place. Branches, stems, etc. Seems to be working well so far and I will be reseeding those bare areas once they're protected with the chop-and-drop mulch.

But at the end of the day just keep the soil covered. Straw is just one of many ways to do that.

Welcome to permies Lindsay! Yes, you've got a problem! I got one bad batch of horse manure, and from my experience, it takes more than a year or two for that stuff to get out of the system, and I'd be *very* cautious about letting the problem spread, so I would try to "quarantine" the grass/hay/manure to the area you know is contaminated until tests of growing sensitive broad leaf plants show normal growth.

I'd also look at ways to increase the "good microbes" in the affected area - making compost tea from weeds and spraying it on the effected area for example. Microbes can be very important to break down and sequester nasty chemicals in an environment. Worms are a safe harbor for many microbes, so worm-composting and worm tea would be a variation on that theme.

As for the hugel itself, I believe the straw/hay is to help mulch the soil and to hold the soil in place - the soil has a tendency to slide down the slope leaving too little near the top. So s. lowe's suggestion of sowing a cover crop for chop and drop makes a lot of sense. That said, you could also choose a place on your land to specifically grow a harvestable crop - like spring peas - that you could chop and relocate to the hugel depending on the timing. Really thin, soft branches would help with the "keep the dirt on" aspect. We've got a number of local trees that if the main stem is cut, they put out a bunch of new growth that would do the job if harvested 6-9 mnths later - but that may not work for your time-frame. If you give people an idea of your growing zone/location, it would help a lot with specific crop suggestions that would get started quickly.

Hi,
   Yes indeed there is a substitute fort straw, in fact I don't use straw at all in my Hugelkultur beds! It really is all down to how you actually construct the bed. Beginning with the heavy timbers (of course) I continue to infill the bed with smaller twigs and then grass cuttings packed in to add nitrogen content, before finishing off with topsoil.
You can see the whole process here at https://planterspost.com/fall-gardening-ideas-hugelbed/  it includes a video of the whole process :)

Leaves make an excellent mulch. Assuming they haven't been sprayed.

I suggest avoiding that manure & straw until a reliable lab tests the soil & verifies the toxins are gone. Even then I would be very reluctant to use any straw from that field for another year or two.

As far as the contaminated straw & manure you have now ... earthworms. I think. Maybe. If it doesn't kill them they might help clean it. Not sure how that specific herbicide affects them. Since you have 3 alpacas there will be more manure so it's probably easiest & safest to just never use the contaminated manure.

Mike Barkley wrote: Not sure how that specific herbicide affects them. Since you have 3 alpacas there will be more manure so it's probably easiest & safest to just never use the contaminated manure.

Hmmm... would drying and turning the manure into biochar denature the toxin? I've heard of biocharring manure. I've also heard that either alpacas or their relative tend to choose a "bathroom" spot, so collecting it might not be too difficult. This is just an idea - I don't know enough about biochar to be sure. If no one joins in here, we could post the question over in the biochar forum.

It sounds like your 10 acre hay field and whichever area the alpacas have been kept in are the sites affected by the herbicide.  I would suggest you isolate materials from those areas and not move them into the other areas. Since you have a 25 acre lot, I assume you still have a decent sized area unaffected, enough for an annual garden, perennials, and fruit/nut trees you may want. Since you seem to be getting into alpacas, I imagine you will continue to want and need the hay field to be a hay field, though I would suggest rotational grazing if possible but still it would be "hay". Others may disagree, but I would suggest you get a manure spreader and return the manure to the 10 acre field the hay was cut from, figuring that it was already contaminated so you may as well return the nutrients, which is part of the benefit of rotational grazing versus hay cutting.