Hugelkulture on a stump?

I am reading the Building a Better World book and found a suggestion to cover a stump with dirt to create a hugelkulture.  Will this work at such a small scale?   We have a couple of big ol' oak stumps in the back yard.   They aren't bothering anything,  but I like the idea of turning them into something useful.

Do the stumps need to be out of the ground or can I  bury them in place?   Has anyone here tried this?

Thanks!

Before homesteaders had access to heavy equipment, it was traditional to pile soil on big stumps and plant squash there. This would eventually break down the stump.

I tried this once on a huge maple tree stump. Two other trees uprooted in a tornado which snapped the top off another tree & they all got snagged up in Tonya D Tree. She had to be cut down because there was no safe way to remove the other 2 trees to prevent damaging the house. I whacked the stump with an axe to roughen the top surface. Then added soil before planting squash, tomatoes, & flowers on it. The squash & flowers did ok but the tomatoes did not survive very long. The pix don't really give a good sense of scale but she was a HUGE tree. The stump was about 6 feet in diameter. Part of her ceramic face is still visible on the trunk. The other trees became firewood but I'm sure that Tonya's trunk will be there for many more years.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, trees seek out dead stumps to mine them for nutrients and moisture. You have nothing to loose and everything to gain! You may not end up with a hugel that is completely water self-sufficient depending on your climate and your climate extremes, but sometime "perfect is the enemy of good enough" - reducing water needs can be an important first step towards eliminating watering. Where I am it is normal for people to water their veggies once, if not twice a day. If you improve that to once every 2 to 5 days for annual veggies, that's progress. Choose the right plants for your "stump mound" and you might only need to help it out once every 2 weeks. Seeds are cheap, so you can let the plants choose which are best for your mound.

I had some logs that I was having trouble keeping covered with dirt in a spot where I didn't have much soil to add. I drilled holes in the logs and poured some dirt in the hole to help the roots get anchored. It would have been better if I'd found a larger than 1/2" drill bit!

Cool!  I'll try that when squash season rolls around again.   With luck the woodland critters will leave them alone.

My original thought was to plant local weeds to start, like plantain, chickweed and dandelion.   Then maybe  some moss would move in.   I really like the squash idea, though.   Or even flowers.   Depends on what the deer leave alone.

With a large, massive stump like that, could you not hollow out the center some, turn it into a "bowl" that would collect water (beneath the soil)? My thought is this would aid in the decomposition of the stump; or act like an Olla, where it would keep the stump really wet, and disperse the water.

No practical experience with this, just the pondering of an active mind.

When I mentioned this project to my husband, he pointed out to me a third stump and suggested that I use that one.  It is about 2 feet across and about 3-4 inches above the ground.   I missed it because it is full of grass!  I guess this particular stump collects water on it's own :)

Lorinne Anderson wrote:With a large, massive stump like that, could you not hollow out the center some, turn it into a "bowl" that would collect water (beneath the soil)?

I have noticed that professional tree removal services often cut a deep cross-hatch pattern into a stump. I assume the goal is to hold water, soil and decomposers, and so break down the stump more quickly. I have tried this and it seems very effective.

Edit: This technique does not require dipping your chainsaw into the dirt, saving you an hour of cleaning, cursing and sharpening.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote: This technique does not require dipping your chainsaw into the dirt, saving you an hour of cleaning, cursing and sharpening.

Theoretically and if done carefully. Some of our trees grew right around rocks which has led to considerable time spent on the cleaning and sharpening, but Hubby's thankfully not prone to overdoing the cursing part. Personally, if you're going to get into a bunch of that sort of thing, having a spare chain or two for your saw is good planning, at least on my rock strewn property.

I've never posted a picture here before, but it is time to try it.   Here is my stump, already full of grass.  It was once home to a bunch of those yellow Japanese hornets (nasty things! )  That was a long time ago.

As of this morning, I had collected some twigs and bits of branches from the yard.   The husband contributed some ashes from the wood stove as well as a charred wren's nest.  What is it with wrens anyway?

Today I decided to work on the stump.  I've been eying the junk pile outside the husband's shop.  It is full of dead leaves and odd lengths of wood.  I'm afraid there was more junk than organic matter...

After sorting for a while I had a bit of leaf mould and a BIG pile of junk.  Can you believe 3.5" floppies?

Aaack!  The Japanese hornets are back!  They saw a nice pile of wood 'n' stuff on their old site and have moved in.  The husband has killed a couple of them in the house already and I wondered where they were coming from.   Now I know  :P

After I calmed down, I looked up these hornets.   A relative had called them Japanese,  but they are actually European.   They came into the US around 1840.  They make nests in hollow trees, between walls,  anyplace dark.  They are the only hornet to fly at night.   Supposedly they only attack when disturbed.   However...

When they come into my house at night and fly up in my face, I'm gonna FREAK!

I'm just relieved they aren't living in my hugel-stump :)

Ellen Morrow wrote:After I calmed down, I looked up these hornets.   A relative had called them Japanese,  but they are actually European.   They came into the US around 1840.  They make nests in hollow trees, between walls,  anyplace dark.  They are the only hornet to fly at night.   Supposedly they only attack when disturbed.   However...

When they come into my house at night and fly up in my face, I'm gonna FREAK!

Good researching Ellen! I've never heard of  a night flying hornet! However, what do they eat? What might be attracting them into your home? Did you get an actual name for them?

Insects are in decline world wide, mostly due to toxins being used in farming. I've found that when people understand how insects can be very beneficial, it improves their willingness to tolerate them. We have wasps that harvest the Cabbage butterfly larvae, so as much as I get a really nasty reaction to a sting, we coexist so long as they don't get aggressive, or build right in front of the well-shed door!  

Jay, they eat insects, no problem with that.  However,  they are attracted by the house lights.  I just have to remember to shut the screen door at sunset.   Usually I leave it cracked so the cat can come and go, and sometimes I forget to close it.

We haven't had any in quite a while, so I guess a new tribe has moved into the area.

The stump is now growing things!  Earlier this  year the cat upset a tray of sprouting herbs and only one sad little sage survived.   So the husband planted it on the stump.  It has done rather well in spite of the lack of full sun.  Later I added some squash seeds and they are growing.

Today I checked the stump an found a calibrachoa blooming!   It can only be from the dead hanging basket I put on the stump last winter.   There must have been some viable seeds in there!

An incident on the other side of the house showed me that deer will eat squash.   I'd better put a cage on this one.

Ellen, from experience, if hungry enough, deer will eat *anything* - even potato greens! And they'll eat anything that humans planted even if they have to walk over 10 feet of weeds to get to it! (Sigh... I need more fencing!)