Paul Wheaton's hugelkultur article thread

You’ve given me an idea instead of burning the pile of branches and clippings I’ll give this idea a go

Interesting video on the wood in an early pile.

We just purchased a plot of land filled with white cedar.  The previous owner left a huge number of cut logs in piles all around.  I know cedar takes a LONG time to decompose, so, to me it would NOT make good wood for using in a hugelkultur bed.  Thoughts?

Deb

cedar is awful for inside hugelkultur.  Don't use it.  

It isn't even very good as a border.

Cedar has many other uses, just not hugelkultur.

My experience which covers the territory around the Salish Sea, esp. on glacial soils  and Willamette Valley, Cascade foothills and Coast Range poorer soils, over 4+ decades has led to me using wooden framed beds only in high-traffic built environments. In my current 1/2  acre suburban agroforestry I'm on heavy clay loam. I have always found beaucoup slugs on any wood framed beds, edging boards, whatever, but in my Eugene yard  I have a breeding population of GARDINER Snakes. [They eat slugs, so that's what I call 'em.] After 10 years here I am still moving things around, and any "hardscape" needs constant trimming. I trim for pay, fine, but if I can't just scythe it, fageddaboutit! But I figure composting is a fiber art, and the mowings are great feedstock. I'm on an ancient valley bottom that was tilled to death and this clay loam (?!) is super for earth buildings. So all my fruit trees and my Italian Alders,  and all the grassy paths and occasional windfalls of tree service chips and autumn leaves from the streets and kitchen scraps contribute to make compost loaves on my bed-and-paths grid. (Roosters are illegal in the city! I wish I could keep a chicken flock, but I won't keep chickens w/o a rooster) I've read that the Pacific Garter snake eats slugs: my theory is that all these woody hiding places are good for the snakes. I'm religious about adding soil with every kitchen waste compost event to promote humous formation: to obtain the soil, I dig trenches  where a bed will be made, and get wood (branches and prunings mostly) I've also done a first test char burn: trench, then start a fire in the trench, pile branches in and when it's full and just about to start burning into ash, with no unburning wood showing, slake it with buckets of water, let it dry a day or two, then pour on 5+ gallons of Vit. "P" so the char becomes a nitrogen "bank". Any trench I dig gets at least any rotting wood or freshly trimmed green branches that are handy to deepen the soil profile. I have gotten truck loads of street leaves delivered by the city, but there are always "contaminants" including cans, trash, glass, plastic stuff-  When there's a big ice storm there are free woodchips from the city, but you have to haul them. ANYWAY- you get the picture: open up the subsoil and add plenty carbon. Then I build up a compost loaf on top until it's around 3 ft. high at least. The first crop I plant happens about 1-2 years after commencing: squash and legumes in pits made in the pile. That makes sure you get a yield, and watering the squash makes sure the "Loaf Bed" matures enough to finish decomposing and be ready for crops more demanding of mature humous. You can trellis with bamboo and have the squash team with runner beans or peas, The nitrogen they contribute will help finish developing the soil.  SO- all of this was also to explain how it might come about that I had a fairly mature compost pile last spring, stuck  a lemon cuke plant in it and harvested so many lemon cukes that for a month-plus I was taking dozens of 'em to all my neighbors, and luckily one family with three kids found out the kids had  capacity for eating lemon cucumbers by the dozen. Yes, it is labor, but the steps are integrated and you can do it at your natural pace.

I confess I did not read all 31 pages here, but I searched "stump" and did not find my answer, even though my educated guess is that my ideas are brilliant (or maybe that's my ego talking, because as of a week ago I swore I would never make a hugelkultur thingy and now I'm thinking of everywhere I could try them, lol).

Possible spot #1:
Turning a Bad Thing into a Good Thing
Sadly, someone cut and stole 6-8 oak trees from my dad's woods when he was in the last couple years of his life and didn't get back in there to keep an eye on things. A scheming guy down the street sweet talked him into helping him with something, and took the trees while my dad wasn't there, and my dad never knew. There are now some stumps, and some arm-thickness decaying logs left behind, already cut to firewood length, as if that was the plan but they never came back for them. How about if I pile those decaying chunks (they're no good as firewood anymore), plus leaf litter and dirt all over a stump, making a hugelkultur pile with the stump as its foundation? Is that brilliant because roots already go down so much, possibly drawing up moisture, and decaying over a longer period of time? Or is there a problem I'm not seeing? It would be in shady woods, where I plan to grow medicinal forest herbs in the future.

Edited to add 3 photos of woods and my new thought of how sad I was in those woods, feeling violated in a way, and seeing all the great wood that was left behind like it was trash. To that guy, only the trunk was worth something ($$$). He obviously didn't even need firewood or he would've taken the smaller parts. Part of me doesn't want to disrupt nature, and I know all that wood will get eaten up again eventually, but another part of me thinks of how jerky humans already disrupted it, by taking at least half a dozen trees and leaving so much behind; more than nature would have. Digging up these pics from 2023 reminds me how much dead wood there is, and there's more than you see here. Note the two stumps near each other, how about a hugel between them, including them? Boy, talk about the cycle of life... I feel a memorial ceremony coming on when I do this.

Possible Spot #2:
Pine Kebab
About 5 years ago a pine tree that was part of a row of 4-5 pines along a driveway fell, away from the driveway into the field behind it. Other than occasionally lopping off a few branches for campfire kindling, no one did anything with it because it's not in anyone's way. The trunk is probably mostly still suspended above the ground a little, held up by its own branches and because the roots came up with the tree. So, how about if I cut all the branches, hopefully allowing it to fall closer to the ground (though maybe not, due to the trunk, as seen in my drawing), then pack all its branches, plus other nearby brush & weeds around it, and "hugel it" in place? Maybe I'd have to stuff branches under it, or whatever. But what if the bottom part of the tree still sticks out, as in my drawing, could that be ok? Or could it cause a problem?
The picture is not at a very good scale; the tree is longer in real life, especially compared to the stick figure. The main trunk goes about from my knee to my waist; in other words, empty space up to my knee height, then the suspended trunk from knee to hip/waist. That's what would be sticking out. I'm giggling at how funny-looking that would be, lol, a hugelkultur with a trunk & roots; like a shish kebab! 🤣

A vid from Paul that explains the maths on how this method allows you to grow more in less space:

Paul shows hugelkultur on top of solid rocks at the labs:

Planting seeds on the 12 foot tall hugelkultur:

Starting my 1st hugelkultur. Excited.

I understand the importance of getting something planted immediately.

I also understand the importance of getting heavy mulch laid down immediately.

Question: How does the new planting get going if underneath a heavy mulch? Or is this an either/or, not both?