!! SEPP to Boot: Stephen's Experience (BEL)

These screenshots from Sepp Holzer’s Farming With Nature https://permies.com/w/holzer-vids seem to suggest minimal pathing, and a lot of trees in the minimal separations between hugelkultur beds.

Good point Matthew.  There are other variables that could make up for paths, such as height of hugel.  I think the point of the exercise was ultimately to see if one could grow 1M kCal on an acre of land.  Even if the extrapolation is exaggerated, 4M probably gives a margin for error.  I spent some time at this hugel in September...I know there would be a significant multiplication of effort if one were to attempt this on the scale of an acre.  An acre of garden in any format would be stretching the effort of a single human.  I forget how an acre is defined, but it seems it doesn't work out neatly to be a square of x' by x'.  If all one did were to put a 2' path between hugels, that would reduce your planting area (from an x-y perspective or aerial view) of about 20%.  Varying the path width of course would impact that one way or the other.

That said, a hugel is an exercise in multiplying plantable land.  If a hugel were triangular (looking from the end) to make the math easier, a 5' height makes for a 6.4' hypotenuse.  That would take the 8'x25' plot from 200 sf of plantable area to 12.8'x25' = 320 sf or more than a 50% increase.  A 6' height would make for an 8.9' hypotenuse / planting bed - 445 sf, more than doubling the plantable area compared with flat land.  

That is an oversimplification since the hugel is rounded in both axes (that is, it isn't vertical on the ends, but that can then provide some plantable space too).  Different composition of the starting materials (sand, silt, clay) would also limit the physical characteristics of the shape of the hugel (that is, how steep it can be before slumping).  Different people are different sizes, so not everyone would be comfortable with a 6' height of hugel...considering the reach involved as well, even 5' tall could be a stretch.

Arguably, to compare sunchokes to sunchokes, one would still need paths in a flat area as well.

Thanks for prompting me to attempt this exercise.  It forced me to confirm that we can easily significantly increase our planting area by introducing some terrain.

Derek Thille wrote:Thanks for prompting me to attempt this exercise.  It forced me to confirm that we can easily significantly increase our planting area by introducing some terrain.

In my time here, I've learned that "corrugated" and textured land can provide all sorts of benefits to the plants involved: increased square footage (as you've noted), water retention, wind resistance, and more. The only drawback in general I've seen would be harvesting - again, as you've noted - and I maintain that a hugel about five feet tall seems to be worth the effort, maybe the "sweet spot" of textured earth (?) farming.

The goal is/was:  grow a million calories on an acre of dirt.  

Math says 4 million can be done.  And if stephen tries a new dirt patch next year, I think he will get 50% more.  

And then, in time, soil will be built and perennials will take over.  So maybe 12 million?  And if you want half the land to be paths, then maybe half that.  

6 million calories would (at 730,000 calories per person) feed 8 people.  

I got a note about combining the $85 worth of food with the 20 hours.  So $4.25 per hour.  

I think there will be zero work next year, but let's say there is 5 hours for irrigation.  Then the soil is built up plenty, so maybe one hour per year after that.  And since it is more like soil than dirt, i think it is fair that more food will be produced from that same plot.

So over the next ten years, there might be 14 hours of work but $1400 worth of food.  $100 per hour.

Of course, there was the additional 30 hours in carry in dirt and logs for the hugelkultur.  So over the whole 11 years:  64 hours and $1485 worth of food.  $23 per hour.  Or, more accurately, $1.70 per hour the first year and $100 per hour each year after that.

But best of all, you KNOW the story of the food.