1st time hugel, in raised bed. Help?

I've got a raised bed constructed. The "walls" are there, made of mostly reclaimed treated 12-bys. For the entire footprint of the bed, the sod that was there has been turned over. The bed is approximately 4 feet by 16 feet. We want to do hugelkultur in it, but it's our first time and although I have a vague sense that I'm to build a layer cake inside my raised bed made of sticks on the bottom, then leaves, and then dirt/compost on top, I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing.

- I've got a big collection of sticks of various thicknesses.

- I've got a big ol' bin of leaves. Could easily fill the bed to the brim just with leaves.

- I've got compost and dirt. (I don't have a TON of these...probably just enough to spread a thin layer of each over the area of the bed.)

- I've got a lotta cardboard too.

What do I put in, how, and in what order? My wife's plan is to grow pumpkins in this thing.

Guidance appreciated.

Hi Ned;
When I built our raised bed hugles, I started by digging 2' deep in the soil below where I planned on our raised beds.
I filled the lowest part with slightly rotted large split firewood chunks.
Then I built the box over that.
Next, I did not do this... but I recommend, stapling 1/4" hardware cloth (rabbit wire) around the bottom edge of your box.
I suggest apx 1' of wire from your box edge down into the soil.  This will help deter rodents from moving into your hugle.
Next, I added branches and leaves, then a layer of dirt, then more woody debris then more dirt.  At the top, I added the compost and topsoil.
In the first season, you will not see much of a difference from a standard raised bed.
Starting with the second season and improving every year after that your wood will break down, hold moisture, and supply nutrients.
You will see the soil level lower each new season as the wood decomposes, simply add more compost and soil on top.  

I have two more hugle beds that I hope to get built this spring, giving us 6 raised boxes, a huge improvement for aging gardeners who no longer want to crawl around on their knees.

The only detriment that we have discovered is our outside cats... they think that while empty during the winter raised beds make superb litter boxes!  
A roll of chicken wire tacked over top during the winter months will put a stop to that!
Cattle panels can be arched over each box to allow for climbing vines or flowers.
Plastic can be draped over the arches to provide frost protection at the end of the growing season.

We built 16x4 foot raised beds from recycled garage doors and filled them hugel culture style. I wish we would have put wire on the bottom to help keep out the gophers. The first one we used logs laid horizontal. The next one we laid them vertically on end, which I would recommend if you're using them. We topped the logs with leaves and straw, then composted manure. Each spring I lay down compost, news paper, and straw over it to reduce weeds and hold in moisture. I haven't needed to water very often during the summer - mostly just when plants are first being established. The first year the levels were off a bit with the wood beginning to decompose but yield has been excellent after that. I was surprised that the heat from the logs is enough to keep rhubarb and other perennials from freezing out. Perennials in raised beds usually aren't a great combination with our northern Minnesota winters.

We made a lot of progress today.

First my wife put down cardboard, then sticks. I thought it wasn't nearly enough sticks, really it was like a light sprinkling of twigs. Probably not even enough to count as hugelkultur. But fine, whatever.

Then we dumped on a lot of leaves from our leaf bin, many of them already partially composted-looking. Very pleased with that. My wife tamped them down by stomping.

Then I shoveled on all the dirt. There was enough to cover about 3/4 of the bed with about 2" though it hasn't been compacted. The remaining exposed leaves will receive more dirt whenever I next get some from my neighbor.

I took photos but getting them off my phone is a pain so I'll do that some other time, maybe if I run into problems and need photos to illustrate what we did so I can ask for help.

Treated wood?  You might want to look into how that can get into your food supply.

I second the gopher protection.  The only issue there is if the wire is too small, plants like tomatoes, that have deep roots, can't get past it.  Lately chicken wire seems to be made of thinner wire and gophers can push through 1" openings and get to the roots anyway.   I've started surrounding raised bed with gopher-proof plants: asparagus, garlic, daylilies, daffodil and narcissis bulbs.

Since Hugelkultur is about adding wood/limbs/branches under the soil to get mold/fungi, the real results come from 1/3 of it being wet wood.  That will last several years.  When the pithy wood is starting to break down, roots of plants can actually get into that wood and take advantage of the environment wood has created.

And be really, really careful about filling in all the air pockets around the wood with soil, or potting soil, something that will slide down into the small pockets and fill it up entirely.  My dense clay soil will not fill in well, so I put granite sand into the pockets.  Eventually the critters will mix it up.  Water it every few inches as you go to make sure those pockets are full.

I've seen some people fill up a container or a raised bed with giant hunks of stumps or slices of trunks of large trees amounting to more than half of the area, there isn't enough soil with critters in it to work on that wood. Especially wood like pine that has sap in it, or cedar or redwood with growth inhibitors,  it will take many years before the roots of plants can use the decaying wood, because it's likely to just sit there.  it really takes more soil than wood to get those critters breaking it down.

My beds sound a lot like yours.
Some wood, mostly branches, lots of leaves and scant soil.
I plant a lot of dumpster dove potatoes in my new beds, not for food but as a green manure.
Especially since you are growing  pumpkins , consider adding a bunch of un-composted biomass to your growing holes.
David the Good has a video on it :

Just finished filling a raised bed yesterday. Here’s what I did… covered grass with cardboard, then a layer of dried leaves, then broke sticks up as small as I could, most under 6 inches. Next I layered compost then topped it with overturned sod from another area of my yard. We still have a couple weeks til last frost so I plan to let it settle a bit then add gardening soil to the top when I’m ready to plant and of course wood chips over top of everything. Good luck 😊