First Time Hugelkultur

This week at my farm internship in Cincinnati, I built a small hugelkultur bed that will be set aside for planting milkweed. I didn't take measurements, but I think the bed was seven feet long by three feet wide. The farm owner happened to have several piles of dead honeysuckle and wild grape logs that she had me use for the core of the mound.

Although Paul Wheaton does not normally recommend digging a trench for a hugelkultur bed, the farmer had also learned hugelkultur from another person who does dig a trench for the mound. After digging the shallow foot deep trench and then laying in the logs and twigs, I used the soil from the trench to partially burry the logs. Since the soil is not enough to completely burry the logs, the farmer whom I'm working with will be collecting fresh rabbit manure to cover the mound since this mound is not going to be used for food this season or next season.

It looks great! The milkweed will look lovely against that fence because it seems to grow so tall.

One thing I noticed about this particular hugelkultur method that I used is that it requires a considerable ammount of effort for such a small bed. Scaling up this technique may require a gasoline powered bulldozer or shovel-arm (the irony of using fossil fuels in permaculture). I am sure there's an easier way to do hugelkultur mounds that wouldn't require heavy machinery when scaling up the operation.

You might find Paul's latest podcast interesting. He gave a consultation to Samantha, and in part 2 they discuss hugelkultur quite a bit.  Check it out: https://permies.com/wiki/223861/Podcast-Samantha-Consultation