A hugel-ish growbed

It all started in the fall of 2022. I didn't know about Permies, but I had just learned about hugelkultur. "Just pile wood and cover it with soil". Sounds awesome. Will do.


But first I dug a trench. I guess I didn't want the bed to be so high.



There was the old foundation of a house, so I dug up some big rocks and bricks. I didn't mind, I like rocks! This is the wood I had in hand:



Lets add some branches, shall we? At this point my little helper wandered of with a bucket and then there was a bird.



In the end it looked like this:



I did shove some leaves and dirt in between the wood and branches but I believe it wasn't enough. I turned the sod on top and then covered it with soil and "mulched" with fall leaves.
I say "mulched" because there was just a thin, thin layer to cover the soil. I didn't plant anything right away because a month later it would look like this:



Then came the spring!  I raked the leaves away from the mounds as soon as they weren't frozen so that the mounds would melt faster. I decided I didn't want mounds.
I made sides!



And then filled the whole thing with bagged soil. I really like it!



Here is the official final inspector approving the newly made shade:




Well that was fun. I just finished it today. For now I covered it with some shade cloth, and I will be planting seeds and plants soon. I will mulch with hay. The plan is:

Strawberries to the backside, to the slope

The front row will be cabbage, broccoli, brusselsprout and cauliflower. They don't like strawberries, or so I'm told, so I'm keeping those two apart so the peace will stay on the kingdom.

Tomato plant, or two. I'm kinda wanting to plant a transplant and a seed of the same variety on the other ends of the bed and see what happens.

Chamomile, marigolds and different kinds of basil.

Maybe throw in some lettuce too?

Oh and some onions with the strawberries, they are good friends!

I think that's it. It will be fun to see what happens. A mouse was renting an apartment on the mound in the winter so I might just be feeding him and his family. We'll see.

Saana, that is a beautiful project you have going there!  Nicely done.

Can you tell if any wood is rotting yet?

Eric

Thank you Eric!

I have no idea if the wood has rotted at all yet, however I doubt it because things got frozen quite soon after the build. The wood was quite old and some of it was already breaking down when I built the mound but.. I don’t know.

I have the other mound beside this completed one that I’m going to make into a bed too, I might do some digging with that one to see what’s up! I mean.. Down.

I threw some some seeds at it!

On it went.. Parsley, chamomile, chives and borage. Oh and leek! Yup, mostly stuff I didn’t mention earlier, I took a look at my seed box and stuff happened.

I have a drawing made so I somewhat know what’s where when I plant more stuff in it.

It’s super early to direct sow anything but it has been very warm spring.. I’m hoping for the best but wouldn’t be surprised if all of these fail!

I’m keeping the shade cloth on (that probably is not the right word, direct translation from finnish is ”frost gauze” but I do know that’s not right either. It’s that white thin gauze-like fabric thingy that can be used for shading and protecting from frost, Google didn’t help me with this!), I’m gonna mulch it later when I’m done with all the direct sowing.. I’m a bit scared for the weed seeds on the hay so I’m going to put it down on a day that stuff is not supposed to germinate well.

Oh yeah, I’m planting with the moon signs, there was a fancy words for this but I can’t remember it now. I have marked carrots on sunday but I’m thinking that it’s not right.. Onions and radishes are going in on sunday I think.

The beds look lovely! Hopefully they will be good and productive too. It's so exciting to be actually planting seeds! I'm hoping to do a bit more tomorrow - maybe some grain seeds (black oats and bere barley - both traditional on Skye but I've not grown before)

Saana Jalimauchi wrote:I’m keeping the shade cloth on (that probably is not the right word, direct translation from finnish is ”frost gauze” but I do know that’s not right either. It’s that white thin gauze-like fabric thingy that can be used for shading and protecting from frost, Google didn’t help me with this!),

I would probably use the word 'fleece'. Is it a spun/woven sort of thin felt?

Oh yeah, I’m planting with the moon signs, there was a fancy words for this but I can’t remember it now. I have marked carrots on sunday but I’m thinking that it’s not right.. Onions and radishes are going in on sunday I think.

I know biodynamic gardeners plant by the moon, but they also follow other procedures, so I think 'lunar planting' or 'planting by the moon' is fine! I'm happy just to get my seeds in the ground (first pea sprouts showing....!)

I have found that mice loved my raised beds last year, so you may find you need to take extra precautions or enjoy feeding them. They had all my peas, but that was mostly because I was wanting to dry them for seeds, I think if I had been picking green it wouldn't have been such an issue.

Thank you Nancy, for the compliment and helping with the words!

I think I found the right word, does row cover sound correct? Or does that imply that I would have also the hoop kinda things that make a tunnel for the plants..? Oh well.

It indeed is so exciting to get to the seed sowing part, finally! I’m gaining a lot of spoons now that the spring actually arrived and I’m able to DO things instead of just planning!

It was raining all day yesterday so I think the seeds are doing fine moisturewise. Now it’s just the temperature that’s making things interesting, the 10 day forecast is promising us nightly temperatures around +3 degrees celcius. Our yard is quite warm at daytime, we’ll see what happens.. Probably the seeds germinate and the tiny plants die from the cold at night. Or not!

We have germination!

The chamomile seeds have started to grow!



So tiny! One of the borage plants have also emerged, I think.


I also transplanted some strawberry plants to the slope.



These were from around the yard, I’m not quite sure how they ended up in those places I took them from. Well one of the spots looked like they were planted there in purpose at some point.

Everything is still covered with the row covers. I’m going to mulch the strawberry plants in the coming days with some hay.


Oh yeah, there were ants.. I sprinkled some cinnamon everywhere. I hope they will move.


Edit. Whoops. The strawberry picture is upside down. Oh well. Fixed it?

I mulched the strawberries today! I really enjoyed it, carefully placing the hay and then gently pulling the strawberry leaves on top of it. Something very meditative and motherly in that.

Most of them are looking good, just a couple of them were a bit droopy. Maybe they’ll perk up!


Oh I did plant some onions in between the strawberries, I almost forgot! The strawberry-onion slope is now done.


I’m still keeping the row cover on top of the bed so the seeds and tiny seedlings have a cozy place under the blanket.

Saana Jalimauchi wrote:I also transplanted some strawberry plants to the slope.

These were from around the yard, I’m not quite sure how they ended up in those places I took them from. Well one of the spots looked like they were planted there in purpose at some point.

You know most strawberries tend to 'walk' with runners? It's possible I suppose that they seeded around too, but that is more likely with alpine strawberries I think.
It's all looking good! I don't think it is possible to have too many strawberries.....

Nancy Reading wrote:
You know most strawberries tend to 'walk' with runners?

Yes! These guys also had super long runner ”strings” from last year. They were trying to find soil to hang onto under the backdoor porch where it is just rocks.

I think those ones could have originated from berries thrown out of the back door. They were at least 35 feet from the obviously intentionally planted ones.


There indeed can never be enough strawberries!

I weeded a bunch of leeks. I thought they were grass. I think I might still have one leek growing.. Unless it's grass. Yes, go ahead and have a good laugh on that!

Update time!
Edit: Agh, the pictures are flipping to the side again.. I'm going to try to fix that later.

The hugel-ish growbed is doing good! And I have three leek plants still growing, yay! Someone has been munching on some leaves of the borage and strawberry plants, but I'm fine with sharing. Here's the overview:



Carrots in the first row. They are a small, round kind of carrot. Oh yeah, I ditched the broccoli/cauliflower/brusselsprout/cabbage -plan, I realized that they would take too much room.



The small plants behind the borage are spinach. I'm expecting them to bolt, it's a really hot place. I should've put them in front of the chamomile plants to get some shade, although I think that still could be not enough for them to not bolt. Just a couple of days ago I put down some radish seeds to fill empty spaces. I'm also going to add more marigolds in there.



Onions seem to be loving it! There are two spots in the slope where strawberries die. I have transplanted to those spots twice but nope. There were a buttload of ants with eggs under one dead starwberry plant. Yes, the hugel-ish growbed is also an ant farm. Oh well. They have not been a problem yet.



I'm trying to fool the birds. We shall see if it works.



First chamomile flowers are blooming! I love the smell of the chamomile plant. I have chamomile growing in a big pot too, and all of them are thriving. I think it's because I used a saved seed from last year, the last years plants from bought seeds were not as vigorous. It's a really, really warm place with a lot of sun.


So far so good!

Umm. The borage took over everything.

The seed pack said to plant one feet from each other, and my previous experience with borage was that it didn’t grow huge. But this time…

One plant is six feet wide. They are gigantic! The bees are loving it!

We have been eating the small round carrots as a snack, they are delicious!
Radishes ended up shaded but some of them grew okay. They are quite spicy.
Parsley is doing okay in the shade.
The spinach bolted as expected, and soon after the weather got colder which would have been nicer for the spinach.. Bad timing on my part!
I have been harvesting a lot of chamomile and the flowers that have been going to seed.. I have been spreading them all over the lawn.
The one surviving leek I had got damaged by a horny dog. No leeks for me this year.


Here are some pictures of the current situation in my hugel-ish gr.. borage bed: