I finished building my hugelkultur today! I started building it yesterday!
I am trying to build a hugelkultur on Plum Plateau at Basecamp. These are my two beginning pictures of the area I have staked out that is at least 7 feet long and at least 6 feet wide.
These are some progress pictures of my work on my hugelkultur.
These are a couple progress pictures of what I was able to complete at the end of yesterday.
These are progress pictures from today!
These are progress pictures with more of the woody bits covered.
I got the wood, twigs, branches, and woody matter from the surrounding area at Plum Plateau. Most of the wood that I used came from already felled
trees. The soil and dirt that I got for my hugelkultur mostly came from Arrakis (the sandy area of Basecamp), and a smaller amount of the soil came from the surrounding area on Plum Plateau. This is my hugelkultur at it's height before seeding and mulching. I laid a tape measure out on the backside of my hugelkultur.
The tape measure reads 9 feet, and in the above picture it is clear that the tape measure isn't touching the tippy top of my hugelkultur. So, I am pretty certain that my hugelkultur is at least 7 feet tall or greater.
These are the seeds and tubers/roots that I have laid out to plant on my hugelkultur.
I planted my hugelkultur with the following:
-Crimson Clover
-Sweet Clover
-Daikon Seeds
-False Indigo Bush
-Red Cowpeas
-Common Vetch
-Rhubarb
-Wheaton Lab Sunflowers
-Winter Dormant Alfalfa
-Black Locust
-
Sepp Holzer Grain
-8 Sunchoke Tubers
-7 Comfrey Roots/tubers
These are sunchoke tubers in my hand about to be planted.
These are comfrey roots/tubers in my hand about to be planted.
These are black locust seeds in my hand about to be planted.
These are many Sepp Holzer Grains in my hand about to planted.
These are common vetch seeds in my hand about to be planted.
These are empty bags at my feet from about halfway through planting seeds on my hugelkultur.
These are all the empty seed bags to show that I planted all of the seeds that I brought for my hugelkultur.
This is my mulched hugelkultur bed, with the tape measure on the backside photo. In the backside photo, the tape measure extends to roughly the tippy top. My hugelkultur was primarily mulched with pine branches, as they are very abundant, and I mulched some other parts of my hugelkultur with mullein from around Arrakis, tree bark from by The Shop, ninebark stems from Plum Plateau, and some
straw from going up Volcano Road.
The tape measure reads over ten feet, so I am quite sure that my hugelkultur is above seven feet tall.
Overall paragraph of materials, seeds, and mulch:
I got the wood, twigs, branches, and woody matter from the surrounding area at Plum Plateau. Most of the wood that I used came from already felled trees. The soil and dirt that I got for my hugelkultur mostly came from Arrakis (the sandy area of Basecamp), and a smaller amount of the soil came from the surrounding area on Plum Plateau. I planted my hugelkultur with the following: Crimson Clover, Sweet Clover, Daikon Seeds, False Indigo Bush, Red Cowpeas, Common Vetch, Rhubarb, Wheaton Lab Sunflowers, Winter Dormant Alfalfa, Black Locust, Sepp Holzer Grain, 8 Sunchoke Tubers, and 7 Comfrey Roots/tubers. My hugelkultur was primarily mulched with pine branches, as they are very abundant, and I mulched some other parts of my hugelkultur with mullein from around Arrakis, tree bark from by The Shop, ninebark stems from Plum Plateau, and some straw from going up Volcano Road.
And just to give a better idea of the size of my hugelkultur, here's a video I took walking around it.