hugel adjacent to in-earth garden

hey all!!

this is my first post so i hope i am doing it right...

i have a long garden, about 50 feet long - only 4 feet wide though, with outcroppings at both ends that make it kind of like a very wide 'U' shape. since the bed is so narrow, i'd like to modify it a bit. the bed runs east to west and i'd like to put a hugelbed north of the existing in-earth garden.

i want to put this hugel bed on the north side to fill in the area running east to west between the 2 outcroppings. i'd grow melons on it, guiding them up a trellis. my issue is, i worry if the building of this hugel bed will have any negative impact on the adjacent garden south of it, as they would be very close if not touching. my worry is causing excess water draining into my garden, as i think the lawn might get pretty moist (just moved to this spot and it's my first year gardening here). if there would be a negative impact, how much space between the in-earth bed and the hugelbed would mitigate this? would a few (2-3) feet between them be enough?

the plan is not for a huge hugelbed.. it would be a relatively small, partially buried hugel - i've some pretty rotted logs from long-neglected firewood from previous owners of the property, was going to dig and bury them in, and kind of use this as a way to extend my bed a few feet wider in the centre. i would say the bed would be 8 feet long and 3-ish feet wide, and not super tall compared to the adjacent in-earth bed - perhaps 2 feet tall. i've never built a hugel bed so i don't know if these measurements are adequate to prevent soil running all over the place. will accept any and all advice!!

thanks so much and please let me know if i can clarify this in any way!!

vv anderson wrote:hey all!!

this is my first post so i hope i am doing it right...

... from previous owners of the property, was going to dig and bury them in, and kind of use this as a way to extend my bed a few feet wider in the centre. i would say the bed would be 8 feet long and 3-ish feet wide, and not super tall compared to the adjacent in-earth bed - perhaps 2 feet tall. i've never built a hugel bed so i don't know if these measurements are adequate to prevent soil running all over the place. will accept any and all advice!!

Welcome to the forum!

I have not made any hugels though I have read a lot about them.

This sounds like a good plan.

Maybe others will chime in to tell you what they have done.

Is the area north of your garden where you plan to put the hugel at a higher elevation than the run of the garden?

I'm imagining the shape design of your current garden being something like the wide "U" because it's working with the east-west contour and both of your sides turn north to try and retain the natural above-garden water flow within the curved southern bottom of the "U".

If that's the case then there will most likely bee a bit more "soak" or saturation of water into the area between your garden and the hugel, and into the garden itself. But, probably not enough to hurt anything?

Do you have any heavy water run off currently entering the garden from where the hugel is planned? If so, the hugel would help more than hurt I would think.

I think elevation changes in and around the garden shape is the key and you could always modify your current garden with a channel or berm here and there to drain better or retain better!

thanks so much for your input!

it seems the ground is mostly flat in the area. there are also a bunch of apple trees scattered about through the yard, which is lovely. i haven't had a growing season in this property yet as we just moved in december. i can ask our landlords what their experience is as they lived there for 4 years before renting to us.

i don't know if i indicated in my first post but this will be a partially buried hugel so that i don't have to import soil - it's essentially a way to help me keep the soil that exists there and get more out of it, as well as ensuring this rotting wood pile near the house doesn't become a rat's/mice nest.
so i will dig maybe 3/4 or a foot deep (by hand... we will see how the soil treats me and how the shovel treats my skin. although i have rock climbing calluses which may be beneficial lol). we also have a composter with a decent amount of stuff in it so hopefully we will do well with that pile. i've never dealt with a compost pile before so i have been researching that as well to make sure everything is composting efficiently.

i also have a 9 foot long trellis frame structure that's 5' 5" tall, so with a hugel, this will end up being ~3.5ft tall trellis which feels like it would be more stable for the plants i intend to grow on it (cantaloupe and melon.. unless i change my mind and swap the melon and squash beds)

so excited - this is all ive been thinking about since november when we found out we could move into this place. i have never had an opportunity to garden at this scale.

the space between the two stumps behind that left-hand bed is the area i'm speaking about

i have been saving cardboard to sheet mulch the garden before planting as well.

i am overwhelmed trying to plan this now because this area is now covered in about 2 feet of snow and i really would like measurements so i know what i'm dealing with. a few weeks ago i got sick of waiting and tried to use snow shoes to take measurements with a tape measure out there. i genuinely have no idea where the current bed starts or stops so i'm estimating based on this picture from november which is... taken from far away so it looks tiny lol

i don't think i will ever get sick of fussing about details every spare moment is spent thinking about some problem or another that i may have to deal with. so fun!!!

It's hard to tell from the picture but it looks like most of the water will drain away from your proposed hugel bed. Hugels are thirsty in their first couple of years. The wood acts like a sponge. You could make a simple A frame level & find where the contour is. After determining that you could orient the hugel on contour so that it captures water. I like to put a small trench on the uphill side to help with that. Of course you wouldn't want to catch too much water & have the dam break. Watch the flow during a hard rain to give you an idea how much might be encountered.

Decomposing wood consumes a lot of nitrogen. For that reason it is usually recommended to plant mostly nitrogen fixing plants the first couple of years.

Good luck with your new project. Hugels are fun to build. Feed it as much compost as you can make. It will thank you later.