old and green wood in a hugel

Due to an ice storm, and my power company's preventative chainsaw action, I have a plethora of downed trees to deal with. Most trunk diameters are around 4 inches and the bulk of that will be firewood, and a few roundwood projects.



I also have a small amount of year old cut branches that were going to be projects, but now they are structurally unsound. I'd thought laying on a tarp would protect them. Um, no.

I have a significant amount of small branches that were blown down by past storms in a lovely brush pile. And you can see that I have lots of fresh twigs.

Hugelkuturs are reportedly very thisty in the first year. Assuming I get one built early enough for the spring rains to charge it, where in the hugle should the older wood be placed for the dryness to be lessened?

Did you ever meet Humphrey?

It was built on east side of the state near the foothills of the mountains. It rained often enough that the only time I remember watering it was when it was first planted. Most of the green wood was on the very bottom. The logs above that were older & partially decomposed to begin with. I did have a water collection IBC slightly downhill from that. When it rained I would stick a garden hose into the center so the IBC wouldn't overflow as much. I think the small trench on the uphill side helped keep Humphrey hydrated too.

Joylynn, that looks like fantastic stuff.   I try to put the green stuff deeper than the medium-rotted stuff (wood I can break with my foot.)   Bury it in manure and pee, then soil, then closer to the top put medium rotted wood that roots will get into next year, then more soil and manure, then six inches below the surface put pithy wood that you can twist with your hands and break up.  Plant roots will go into that wood right away, they will love it.

Trench-making may seem like a lot of work, but I've never regretted one minute of it.  And whenever it rains I know that wood is soaking up and holding as much water as it can for years and years.  

Any green wood you don't get around to can be set aside until it is more rotten, no loss there.

Thanks Mike!  So it was you who I saw using old and greenwood. Would you say you layered the old wood throughout, or mostly on top? I reread the whole thread, but it's still not clear to me.

Thanks Cristo. That layering description makes sense to me. My prior viewing of hugles was for entertainment purposes only. But now I have all that wood!

A couple hugel hiccups to avoid:

Layers of wood that are too thick are common, leaving big air pockets where soil cant fill them. This causes drying out and planting failures. It also increases settling over the first year, and that could be problematic for perennials. Many trees are better off with a bit of exposed root flare, but too much is too much and will cause instability and dehydration. To avoid this, lop and stomp each layer of woody debris to have soil contact, and alternate laters when <90% of the previous layer of soil is covered with wood.

Wood too close to and protruding from surface causes dehydration via wicking from exposed and quickly drying wood. I cover the top layer of wood, which are ideally y-shaped sticks that hold soil on slopes, with at least 6” of topsoil or compost.

Wood floats! It will become waterlogged and nonbuoyant after a rainy season, but if placed where floodwaters run without sloped diversions away from the hugel, dry wood thats just been buried could get up and say hi to the neighbors, as Paul might put it.

Good hugelin to ya!

The only truly green log in that hugel was the largest one on the very bottom. All the rest were decomposing & some were basically falling apart. It was firewood that had been sitting outside unused for a few years. Those were scattered throughout the entire hump.

Joylynn, for what it's worth, I found the mounded version of hugelkultur to require a ton of work and needed a lot of maintenance.  Sepp Holzer used a bulldozer, so that will tell you just how much dirt needs to be involved and moved.

My first try at hugels above ground, the rodents (gophers, voles, mice) got into them and made air tunnels, dried everything out, gave them great homes.  We don't get summer rain, so it was hard to keep them damp.  I was exhausted after using a wheelbarrow to haul that dirt, that just needed more and more as it settled.

So the trenches work for me.  Doesn't matter if the rodents get into them, but they don't tend to as much because they don't want to deal with all the wood.  Even now when I find a gopher tunnel I shove a pee-soaked branch into it, sort of a mini hugel trench, the plants snap back and the gophers, when they try to go around, show themselves and I do the rest.

The trenches and wood hold the water, they stay damp with no more work involved, they are less likely to freeze solid unless you're in a seriously frozen part of the world.  It's a once-and-done thing, with some applications of compost and woodchips on top.