Hugelkultur question -- Can I immediately sow seeds in new bed?

Hi, I have a tree I cut down and have several small limbs and twigs that have been sitting in a pile since September (fall) of last year.   I am building a couple new 4' x 4' raised garden beds 18" deep.

Can I put say 6 inches of branches and twigs at the very bottom of the new beds, fill with dirt to 12" and then top with compost / peat the remaining 6 inches.. and then immediately sow my spring garden into them?

Or will the small limbs and twigs draw too much nitrogen from the compost and make the new soon to be seedlings suffer?

My goal is to save money on the disposal of the limbs and twigs, and fill soil for the bed.

You likely want to get a cover crop in there to deter unwanted travellers. Why not sow some nitrogen fixing chop-n-drop to enhance the soil?

Simon Gooder wrote:You likely want to get a cover crop in there to deter unwanted travellers. Why not sow some nitrogen fixing chop-n-drop to enhance the soil?

What is "nitrogen fixing chop-n-drop"?  Sorry I am a newbie.  I just started gardening in the fall, built four 4' x 4' raised beds 18" deep.  I want to add two more in the next few days so I can start my spring crop.   I'd like to have all six beds producing me vegetables this spring.  Have no clue what chop & drop is sorry.  I feel dumb!

Hi Jennifer, I think you can sow seeds right away.  With a tall/steep hugel you want to sow them immediately and mulch so that the seeds can knit the soil together before the hugel falls apart in a heavy rain.

For what it sounds like you're doing, the erosion is less of an issue but seeds can still go in immediately.  The nitrogen sucking of the twigs is likely only an issue within a millimeter of the twigs (if at all) so I wouldn't worry about it.

You may do just fine by skipping the peat by the way.  I hear it's not that renewable a resource.

And you're not dumb at all.  Simon just hit you with some permaculture jargon that we all eventually learn.  

Chop and drop is when you hack down undesirable plants and use them to mulch your desired plants.  Nitrogen fixer is a plant that makes nitrogen and puts it into the soil, especially when it's chopped or killed.  Legumes and clovers are common nitrogen fixers but there are many.

So I believe Simon's suggesting that you plant something like clover, alfalfa, peas or other nitrogen fixers and then hack them down once they get some decent growth on them and mulch the bed with them.  If you have a long enough season that you could do that prior to planting your garden, it's an option.  If it would consume your whole growing season, I'd likely just plant my veggies and take it from there.

Good luck and we're here for you :)

How thick a mulch do you put on initially when making a hugelbed?  I've had low germination rates, and it seems like the mulch just slides down the bed and squishes the cover crop.
I probably didn't plant enough taprooted stuff.  Are you more sprinkling or heavy mulching or putting random blobs in different places?
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Also, this year most of my seed packets got wet in my pocket one day, so I figured rather than waste them I just poked some holes in the thick mulch on the hugelbeds from last year, tossed the seeds on top (everything from lettuce to squashes) and got no germination I could see.  It may have been too cold, it may have been the late frost later that finished them off, but I think they never germinated and maybe some birds with a guilty conscience would like to explain it to me.  Only potatoes, chokes, and transplanted seedlings lived.  The mulch was about 3-4" thick, and had hardly broken down since the drought was so harsh and irrigation stopped being viable off a 100-gallon-per-day well.  Next time if I'm in this situation I think I'll pull all the mulch off and sprinkle tiny bits.  Thoughts?

My beds are about 45 degrees steep, I haven't managed to get steeper than that.  But it still seemed like with a lot of wind the mulch had to be sliding down a bit and squishing anything planted in, closing up any holes I'd poked.

Mike Haasl wrote:Hi Jennifer, I think you can sow seeds right away.  With a tall/steep hugel you want to sow them immediately and mulch so that the seeds can knit the soil together before the hugel falls apart in a heavy rain.

For what it sounds like you're doing, the erosion is less of an issue but seeds can still go in immediately.  The nitrogen sucking of the twigs is likely only an issue within a millimeter of the twigs (if at all) so I wouldn't worry about it.

You may do just fine by skipping the peat by the way.  I hear it's not that renewable a resource.

And you're not dumb at all.  Simon just hit you with some permaculture jargon that we all eventually learn.  

Chop and drop is when you hack down undesirable plants and use them to mulch your desired plants.  Nitrogen fixer is a plant that makes nitrogen and puts it into the soil, especially when it's chopped or killed.  Legumes and clovers are common nitrogen fixers but there are many.

So I believe Simon's suggesting that you plant something like clover, alfalfa, peas or other nitrogen fixers and then hack them down once they get some decent growth on them and mulch the bed with them.  If you have a long enough season that you could do that prior to planting your garden, it's an option.  If it would consume your whole growing season, I'd likely just plant my veggies and take it from there.

Good luck and we're here for you :)

I'm not an expert but I'd put enough mulch down to keep from seeing dirt.  That should break up rain drops enough to prevent some erosion.  If you chuck in enough seeds that 2% grow (plus any transplanted tubers/cuttings/etc) it should give some good cover after everything has a chance to grow.