The Camp

As part of the huglekulture build, I built up the topsoil behind, between and below the actual huglekulture mounds by about 2 feet. First image is the bed "behind" the hugles (to the east of them). Second is a shot of the tire garden mentioned previously that was constructed a couple years before and planted with plums, wormwood and hyssop (among many other things). Behind the tire garden, you can see the "below the hugles" area.

Unfortunately, about this time, my camera went wonky and could only take video at the same time the viewfinder screen went bad, so I wasn't able to get much workable material during the growing season 2021 to 2022.

Here are some screenshots from video taken in July 2022 (for the purpose of taking screenshots of video). They're not the best quality, but do show at least some of the beauty and productivity of the hugles. I'll try to label some of the images with some of the plants you can find in the shots, though I'm sure I'll miss many as these were and have been planted with intense polyculture every year.

2023 wasn't much better, plus it was a non-stop deluge of rain here, so very few photos of anything. The camera used has a cloudiness issue, causing the whole top of the image to appear to be in a bank of fog. Nice effect for some shots, but not great for documenting growies.

Here are a few that came out "decent" enough in october of 2023 showing the hugles

And one more with some photos of the blueberry pond this year.

One more of the hugles tonight since I'm running out of "posting time" - this is one is a montage that I already processed a bit and prepared with labeling (though I didn't label everything). There's not all too much to see yet as things aren't all up in the photos, but it shows this year  I hope to get more photos, and of decent quality, this year, but with how busy everything is all the time around here, it's hard to find the time to mosey about snapping pics of things.

While at it, I'll put up another post with more labeled pictures of growies in various places. This place is really starting to come together, finally...just wishing there was a little less maintenance to be doing by now!

And, while I have a few, I'll start posting on the "perch pond". This is pond is part of the original design, taking advantage of a naturally low, flat area toward the middle of the property that stayed perpetually wet and had at least two surface springs feeding it. Much of this area was just soggy sphagnum moss with clumps of grasses growing up through, raspberries and wild strawberry growing around the outer edges slowly being overtaken by yellow birch, willow and speckled alder.

The hired excavator in "the big dig - part one", we had two enormous pits where the pond was supposed to be. They were roughly 50 foot diameter and 35+ feet deep. Not exactly what I had in mind. We were expecting to find deer or moose floating in these before long.

But at least I had a "deep section" already dug with "pit number 1", and at least they were in roughly the right location (even if half my driveway and half the planned roadway to the north of the pond was now "pit").

Once I rented the excavator and had the blueberry pond and cabin pad fixed, the next big thing was to correct the "perch pond" PITS disaster and start excavating clay for the future cabin build. Here I've built out my access road a bit and began connecting the two "pits", filling the one near the access road with mostly topsoil.

Not knowing how much I'd be able to complete ahead of time, I made sure to get the "outlet" and dam built ASAP, just in case. A controlled outlet is as important, or perhaps even more important, then the water catchment itself, especially here in New England where we can easily get flooding rains for two or three years running.

The outlet runs downhill (of course) among the middle of the pasture area - I already had two Lapins cherry trees planted up along the side of the skid trail that acted as an outflow area from the existing soggy, marshy mess we had, so the outlet became known as "Cherry Stream".

I placed a 4 inch pvc swivel pipe into the dam area and clayed it in. The dam has been built up from where it is in this picture by a couple more feet

Once "finished" with the digging, the perch pond certain looked a mess. The water levels were low as I was blessed with fairly dry weather during my "big dig - part deux". This quickly changed as fall approached and the water levels have kept up well since, never dropping even close to these levels in the pictures. The "pit" area in the south-west corner of the pond is still 35+ feet deep and even when the water temperatures warm in the late summer to the 70s, the water down there stays roughly 50*F.

The pond isn't finished, of course - only so many hours I had the machine for. Here's the leftover "landing strip" that still needs to be dug out. I hope to rent a machine again at some point soon, but money is always an issue (as in the lack of money). The "penninsula" to the east of the "landing strip" will be staying and currently has a decent size, but fairly non-productive, mountain ash growing toward the southern end of it. I've also put in grapes here and have planted it with comfrey, lovage, etc.

I quickly planted the pond with arrowhead, waterlily and cattails, plus seeded the beach and banks with clover, comfrey, lovage and chicory, among many other things. I have no pictures from 2021 due to the camera difficulties, and have only some video from 2022, which I'll post up once it finishes uploading to vimeo shortly.

I have a only this one picture from October 2023 with the foggy lens issue.

Here's a couple shots from a last week, followed by the labeled version of the second one. The first shot was included in the "hugles" picture with the mulberry(ies) labeled. The pond attracts wild ducks and loons, blue herons and I've even seen osprey fly over a few times, but eventually the idea is to move the ducks and geese to this area.

I plan to thin / clear the forest area around the west side of the pond to convert it to more (treed) pasture, then include it into the pasture fencing scheme, before introducing the ducks to this pond. The area with black locusts, mountain ash and grapes is already being cultivated into a "duck forest" the past couple years and the hope is to include button bush along the southern shore line and aronia / chokeberry along the road / beach interface.

Incredible what a little time doing earthworks does to a landscape, and the biodiversity it brings in is downright explosive. What was once a soggy, unproductive mosquito breeding ground...now a chorus of frog sounds from spring to fall, the breeding ground for countless dragonflies and damselflies, and a foraging ground for bees. Of course, we get food from here, too, and lots of it. The nutrient catchment is only another plus as we use the pond for irrigation, plus we take what seems to be literal tons of biomass from here for use in mulching garden beds each year.

And the effect on extreme temperatures is truly amazing - this pond now helps protect the huglekulture berms from early frosts with massive banks of fog and mist through much of the fall, then the cold air coming off the cold water in spring helps to ensure the apricots, cherries and plums near it don't bloom so early that they lose their flowers to the inevitable late frosts.

A properly planned and built pond can do so much, I can certainly see why the "department of making you sad" try to stop many from building them!

And the promised video - early July of 2022:

Such a transformation! Thank you for sharing.
It is interesting to hear you are already noticing the temperature moderation effects of the pond. I was interested in the potential suntrap effect of reflected light in my Northern cool climate. I only have little water terraces at present, which are at a very early stage of establishment, but I am hoping that they will keep the surrounding ground just a little warmer due to running water in winter too.
Theoretically the work involved in a well designed forest garden gets less as time goes on. Chop and drop and harvesting....Personally I think that a garden is never 'finished' as succession changes your thoughts about what to grow and how to do it, or maybe that's just me getting over excited.