posted 3 years ago
Not sure how to convey this info but I figured I'd start with a single thread and see if a new forum for "Teacher's Lounge" stuff was worth creating...
Supplies:
White fiberglass stakes to mark the locations
Long tape measure to show size
Working excavator
2 chainsaws for every 3 students with a spare battery for each saw
Hatchets for harvesting boughs and making junkpoles (side job)
Schedule:
Break it up into two or three half day sessions. One to build the hugel and the second to finish it up and plant/mulch. Maybe it will take two half days with the excavator if the class is larger or slower.
Usually it goes pretty slowly until everyone's been in the excavator one time.
Class size:
If the hugel is in one straight line, 6 participants is very doable. If parallel hugels are possible with the excavator in between, more is doable. Moving the excavator around takes a bit of time so simple forward and backward is quickest.
Approach:
Stake out the hugel locations with the stakes 4-5' apart (width of the hugel) and 6+ feet apart down the length of the hugel.
Pics from the same spot is hard to do since the landscape changes so much over the course of the BB. Help them pick good spots to photograph from.
Cut first wood bits to be 4' longish and lay them perpendicular to the run of the hugel. Leave room between the wood for dirt. Sprinkle of wood, sprinkle of dirt, repeat.
Quick explanation of the excavator operation. The hydraulic disengaging lever is a key thing to discuss.
Scoop dirt from the far side of the hugel and dump on top. It takes 4 layers of wood and 4 scooping events to build a hugel. We're using the approach of a 4' hugel with 3' deep trenches on both sides.
Do two scooping events from the far side (the second one will be getting hard to see what you're doing), then the last two from the near side.
Take pics for the "3 scoops with an excavator" BB.
Sometimes driving the excavator to the end of the hugel so they can do a lengthwise scoop down the trench can make the trench a lot better.
Bored people can start harvesting junkpoles and stashing a collection of boughs to mulch with. And chop and drop materials to also mulch with.
Collect seeds in the library and dig comfrey and sunchokes in the back garden.
Throwing seeds at the fresh, loose dirt of the hugel gets them to stick in decently.
If mulch is stockpiled in their spare time, the planting/mulching only takes 1-2 hours.
Building a trail on a berm may be a bonus BB you can get that would also help with mulching/planting.
Am I forgetting anything?
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