Try hugel in mediterranean climate

I chose to qualify the place as mediterranean because it is dry BUT watered. It is subtropical BUT not always so hot.
I had some spare wood around, and here it does not rot so easily.
So the recipe is:
dig to get soil apart,
put the wood,
put wet stuff on top (prickly pear)
put some goat dung
cover with soil again
protect with dry stuff.

All this, more than 1 day work with my boyfriend, for a "few" watermelons....
Of course I hope it will last some times!

Hens loved it, so I put more branches on top.

Here are pics of the process:

The 2 first pics are taken from the same side, and you can notice the cactus pads in the wild place at the back.
You can see grass, and the last pic show you better that i wanted to get at the level of the above ground.

1 side is at the east, and thus the other west. It is between avocado trees.

This raised bed allows me:
- to work a place that was hard and never planted, without disturbing tree roots too much.
- nourish trees that willl certainly send roots to feed from the bed.
- use wood that I do not burn, that does not really rot but dry, and it would end up full of wood worms that i do not feal as very beneficial. (There are not termites here though.)
- We cleaned some cactus from the ravine, which was necessary because they send roots in the gardens.

I once did just an opuntia pile that just did rot and feed trees: this one will rot wood and feed veggies as well.

Because of tree roots nearby, we did not dig enough, so the soil is a little reduced on top. I could reach the pads with my hand when I planted the watermelons.

2 more pics, with the 1st plants and the water pipes.
and after the hens discovering it and scratching.
Solved with more branches.

¡Ho! I asked for a "climate forum" and there is this new forum, thanks!

I will be motivated to keep up this post, and will select a few pics to illustrate the 2nd year of the 2 "mountains" I did last year.
At the moment, I can say grrrrrr, I have more rat's housing under this.
And grrrrrrr, soil is going down on the side and it is more work to put it up again.

Xisca Nicolas wrote:¡ I have more rat's housing under this.

Rodents love these piles! But maybe eventually you'll get snakes.

I'm finding that one of the beauties of the Mediterranean climate is that it is possible to build a soil by the direct application of organic matter, which in a wetter climate breaks down too quickly (biochar is a solution there). We heat with wood and also have sheep, which uses/processes a lot of the organic matter into ash and manure/litter. But there is still a yearly quantity of prickly or poisonous prunings, dead stalks from this and that, and paper and cardboard (though a lot of this I soak, roll up and tie, and dry out to burn) which needs something done with it....left lying around it is a fire hazard and rodent habitat. So I have three raised beds bordered with metal, with mesh underneath to keep gophers out (thus preventing rodents in general from getting in. I use these for root veggies which otherwise would feed the gophers. Each year I dig out most of one bed and pile this soil onto the others, into wheelbarrows, etc. and then put the accumulated brush, etc. into the bottom of the nearly empty bed. It's a good place for humanure compost too, provided the root veggies grown in it are for cooking only (like potatoes). Then I add other compostables like sheep and poultry litter, and pile some of the soil back in. This "cleans up" the yard for the year....although a new brush pile will begin accumulating soon enough. The next year, another bed is on deck for digging out and re-filling. By the 3rd or 4th year when the rotation comes back, all the stuff is pretty much composted.....

Well, I still have too much accumulated organic matter to process, so will try what you say AFTER processing all my tuneras pads etc....
Underneath my trees is already FULL of logs and branches...

And it is too dry here, so nothing composts by itself unless I water it, even in the suposedly "wet" winter....

I have found another way to deal with the smellest size of left overs, and I have planned to share it in a new post.... I have pics etc and will write out of connexion before putting something well explained.

I have burried some more tuneras yesterday.... Not much, 1 layer, so the level of the ground has not changed.