K Cook

Hi Emilie, I'm new to all this, but I'm in NW PA, but the SE corner, maybe - Cooksburg, PA.  How far afield from Harrisburg are you looking?

Thanks, all!  I think we'll do it, as no one has called me crazy today, trying to talk them into helping... I'll take some before photos, and some after, and post both after whenever "after" ends up being... I'm excited to try it!  
Your photos look great, Ben, thanks for posting.  I think Norway Spruce are only moderately rot-resistant trees here in western PA, and my pieces are well over thigh-size, so here's hoping it works out well.  I'm actually in the middle of one of the last / best stands of old-growth (hemlock and white pine, mostly) in the Eastern US -- Cook Forest State Park  The forests floors are wonderfully spongy and wet, as there's no salvage/ removal of fallen trees, limbs, or leaves/ needles in the park.

Hello, thanks very much for your replies!  I considered further today, and may have a better plan -

The 4' stump is nearly level with the soil, but has roots galore, so I won't be digging anything in any time soon.  I know spruce isn't the choice wood for hugelculture, but I've got a lot of it!  Two three-foot diameter 15' long trunk sections, and four smaller diameter ones -- what if I created three beds and two walkways, with the larger trunks on the outside aligned N-S (this area of the property is flat, and as full sun as I get anywhere in the yard)... I could fill in with winter branches and some big shards of sugar maple that just lost a huge trunk, but I'll have to bring in soil, too.  This way it won't be loads of evergreen wood actually *in* the hugel beds, but decomposing more slowly as the edging, and the trunk a couple of feet down.  I do have a lot of really slow-decomposing ornamental grass reeds (it's zebra grass) - is this okay near the bottom of the beds, or will it form a water-impervious layer? I don't have a chipper or mower with which to mince them...

We're absolutely crippled with deer here, so I'll probably fence the beds, and use them as our only "edibles" area - the veg, herb, and tasty flower patch.  I'd add a walkway at the front with the door - since I can't reach across 4 feet, the outside beds would be narrower, but this would eliminate the giant-bed compaction and access problem.  Since I can't dig down, these beds would be probably 2.5 to 3 feet high/ deep, like the trunks.  I could plant a couple rounds of cover crops - alfalfa and/or Austrian winter peas in the beds to add nitrogen and chop-and-drop greens, and will be filling up the unfenced areas of yard with lupine and anything else that won't be devoured, like bee balm, new england aster, goldenrod, and foxglove.  

I'll probably try to turn the 5' mound of wood chips, let them season/ compost another year, and them use them as mulch or lasagna layers around rhododendrons and mountain laurel, etc.  Or I could definitely put them into the beds, if it wouldn't be too much nitrogen depletion, and too much spruce?  

Critiques and further advice welcome!  Thanks!

Hello all, I'm new to permaculture, but have been reading Gaia's Garden and this site lately.  I live in Western PA, which has had some really wet years of late, and just had a very large norway spruce with needle blight [which should not be transmittable] cut - and left, chips, trunk, and all - on the property.  Our soil is very poor, mostly clay and rocks, and I was planning to build a raised bed for $$ when it occurred to me i might re-arrange the trunk sections - 15' each - around the stump, which is probably 3' diameter but cut to pretty near the soil surface.  Then I'd pack in the smaller limbs and as much grass and greens and decent soil as I can get, and end up with a large raised bed.  

My questions are -- would this be too large?  I'm 5'3" and the trunk sections come to my knees - I won't be able to reach anything like the centre of the bed, if it covers the stump and roots, and is edged by the trunks, even if they're cut down from 15'.  Also, we're in heavy deer country, so if I plant anything edible it'd need a fence on top of the trunk sections, which unfortunately I won't be able to dig down into the soil probably at all.  So I'd likely need a gate of some sort, and may end up compacting a path through the middle of the bed lengthwise.  I'd probably plant a couple rounds of nitrogen-fixers on top, cut and let lie, before anything of value.  Is this volume of spruce just going to be too much, do you think?  Suggestions?

The site should get 9 hours of summer sun, has no sod on it now, and probably I'll continue to age the wood chips and use them as acidic mulch in a year or two, instead of adding them to the bed.  I could post a photo tomorrow if it'd be helpful.  Thanks for your time!