Hugel Herb Spiral

I'm reading Toby Hemenway's book Gaia's Garden and he's talking about putting in an herb spiral. That is going to be my first big project late winter/early spring. I have an idea for getting some elevation on it and making it hugel.  Tell me what you think...

Toby recommends a mound of dirt 5' wide or so, and 3' tall or so.  Put a sprinkler up through the center to water it. Do the rock thingy in a spiral starting at the bottom, going to the top.

What if I dug down a couple of feet and saved the soil on a tarp.
Then filled that hole in with logs in various degrees of decay, from green to nearly dead.
Then covered that with some of the soil I dug up.
then added smaller logs, limbs, etc, and covered that with more dirt...
And repeated until I got to the top of the spiral.
Then put my rock spiral in.

Is there any reason this wouldn't work? Other than the fact it would probably be 5 or 6 feet tall to start?
Crazy thing is, it would be darn close to 7' tall by 6' long (or round) and I might be able to get a BB for it.

What could go wrong? I have the logs. I have a shovel. I have the rocks.

j

Give it a go and let us know what happens? Please post pics of the stages of your adventure?

I'll post lots of pictures.  Thanks! You know what? I'm gonna go for the BB, too. I'm gonna make it 7 feet tall and 6' in diameter.

j

Angela Wilcox wrote:Give it a go and let us know what happens? Please post pics of the stages of your adventure?

I have not made something like this, but the idea is really starting to endear itself to me.

I did some searching and maybe this thread might be of use in your planning... or maybe this thread!

I'm excited to see how this project goes!

I liked the other designs that you found. Mine is more than likely going to be more spread out. I have a lot of things I can put in the microclimates it'll create, and I'm probably going to do a small pond, too. So while it will look like a bigger structure, and I have some small boulders I can use in the design, it will be the centerpiece of that part of the property.

j

Jim Garlits wrote:Is there any reason this wouldn't work?

You need to be prepared for this to settle substantially the first year, and more gradually on subsequent years. The better you pack dirt around the wood, the slower it will settle, but as the wood decomposes, the mound will get shorter, from everything I've read.

If I was adding rocks to a build like this, I'd be trying to picture how the settling would affect them. I would try to either make sure they had solid areas under them, or I would try to make sure they would tip ways I wanted them to. Or I would simply accept that as this spiral ages, it will need a little TLC to age gracefully.  Nature is not static. Gardens grow and change!

I would also be careful to make sure woodier plants would be able to descend gracefully. Usually they would be planted near ground level. Rosemary can become quite a large shrub as an example.

Looking forward to pictures!

Settling is guaranteed. It will be right next to the house, in an area that traditionally gets lots of morning and early afternoon sun, which has created a favorable microclimate. If my rosemary would have been 20 feet closer that way, I would have been using it all winter. i just dehydrated a bunch of sage leaves earlier today from it's spot next to the light green siding. The soil is warm enough all year that it thrives. I planted it in the spring of 2020. The spiral will give me at least five microclimates, and there is a downspout on either side of it, so I'm thinking rain barrels for an irrigation system. The downspouts on the other side of the back of the house will be diverted to my orchard.

I'll definitely be posting lots of pictures.

j

Jay Angler wrote:

Jim Garlits wrote:Is there any reason this wouldn't work?

You need to be prepared for this to settle substantially the first year, and more gradually on subsequent years. The better you pack dirt around the wood, the slower it will settle, but as the wood decomposes, the mound will get shorter, from everything I've read.

If I was adding rocks to a build like this, I'd be trying to picture how the settling would affect them. I would try to either make sure they had solid areas under them, or I would try to make sure they would tip ways I wanted them to. Or I would simply accept that as this spiral ages, it will need a little TLC to age gracefully.  Nature is not static. Gardens grow and change!

I would also be careful to make sure woodier plants would be able to descend gracefully. Usually they would be planted near ground level. Rosemary can become quite a large shrub as an example.

Looking forward to pictures!

Somebody famous - maybe Toby Hemenway but don't quote me on that - said that your herb garden isn't close enough to the door if you can't go out in all weather to pick fresh herbs for breakfast in your fuzzy slippers.

I've got Rosemary, Sage, Garlic chives, regular chives, Oregano, Marjoram and a few walking onions that fit that description. Alas, my Old English Thyme passed on. I'd hoped it would have dropped seeds, but so far I haven't seen babies. Although I must admit my slippers aren't fuzzy.

The yard slopes down away from the house, so it doesn't look like it, but the center of the pile is about a foot and a half high...



Got a bit of work done this morning. Sheet mulch with a twist: cardboard/dirt/hugel/dirt/soak with the hose after I unfroze it in the sun. :)

j

Here's the herbs I ordered from rareseeds.com:

Stevia
Thai basil
Blue spice basil
Bee balm (panorama red)
Borage (blue)
Ecinacea
Lemon balm (in case mine didn't overwinter)
Oregano (vulgare)
Purslane
Rosemary
Savory
Thyme (wild)

Also put in orders for Purple Teepee bush beans, candy roaster winter squash, rugosa friulana summer squash, glass gem popcorn, astronomy domine sweet corn, and collards.

j

Jay Angler wrote:Somebody famous - maybe Toby Hemenway but don't quote me on that - said that your herb garden isn't close enough to the door if you can't go out in all weather to pick fresh herbs for breakfast in your fuzzy slippers.

I've got Rosemary, Sage, Garlic chives, regular chives, Oregano, Marjoram and a few walking onions that fit that description. Alas, my Old English Thyme passed on. I'd hoped it would have dropped seeds, but so far I haven't seen babies. Although I must admit my slippers aren't fuzzy.

I just ordered two cubic yards of topsoil to dump on top of everything I placed this morning. Once I get that turned in, soak it down again with the hose, put my rock spiral in, and plant seeds, it should be just over 3 feet at the peak...

Jim Garlits wrote:The yard slopes down away from the house, so it doesn't look like it, but the center of the pile is about a foot and a half high...



Got a bit of work done this morning. Sheet mulch with a twist: cardboard/dirt/hugel/dirt/soak with the hose after I unfroze it in the sun. :)

j

Okay, so I'm going to bite the bullet and add a significant amount of hugel to this herb spiral. My soil should be dumped sometime this week, rain allowing.

Here's the pertinent question for those who have built herb spirals...

Does the rock structure have to go all the way to the ground, all the way to the center? If I don't do that, I know there will be significant settling. But if there's a lot of significantly sized logs in there, that should add some stability.

Any tips on strategies of log placement?

j

It. Is. Finished!



j

What a great creation; well done!

I can appreciate the shoe prints in the dirt

I'd be itching to plant it already.

It's got a nod toward hugelkultur, but not strictly by the book. I'm really excited to get started planting seeds. Except for some easily attainable local herbs (a big container of rosemary for the crown, Mandarin lemon balm and maybe some lavender for the outside of the spiral. Several of my seed packets say that I have to start them indoors, so I'll be doing that soon. Last frost is only a couple of months away. I don't get antsy, May 1st will be here in the blink of an eye.

j

Timothy Norton wrote:What a great creation; well done!

I can appreciate the shoe prints in the dirt

I'd be itching to plant it already.