VIDEO: harvesting black locust trees

Hi all, in preperation for planting a hugelkultur bed (and other permacultury projects) we went out and harvested some young Black Locust's and made a video. enjoy!

Hi there, I'm not able to view your video, but I hope you're not planning on using black locust wood for the hugel bed. It is the most rot resistant wood in Eastern North America, and can literally last for 100 years in contact with the ground and wet. As such, its the best wood for fence posts.

Howdy Jim!

I don't know what to tell you about the video. I can view it just fine. Perhaps you do not have the appropriate codec downloaded in able to view the file type?

We are not planning on putting the wood of the locust into the bed! We are planning to plant locust in the bed as an early nitrogen fixing coppiceable plant for the first 10 years or so, and then harvest the wood for fence posts and tool handles and and as a nursery for other applications.

Thank you for the warning though,
Cheers,
Andrew

Thanks Andrew. Great soil! Looks like the big tree really puts out a lot of leaves.

So do you see any really old trees that have fallen and are in contact with the soil? Does there seem to be any decomposition with those logs? Any insects etc helping to break them down ? Just seems that if locust last so long that there would be old logs and branches laying all over the place not decomposing ?

Andrew Schreiber wrote:Howdy Jim!

I don't know what to tell you about the video. I can view it just fine. Perhaps you do not have the appropriate codec downloaded in able to view the file type?

We are not planning on putting the wood of the locust into the bed! We are planning to plant locust in the bed as an early nitrogen fixing coppiceable plant for the first 10 years or so, and then harvest the wood for fence posts and tool handles and and as a nursery for other applications.

Thank you for the warning though,
Cheers,
Andrew

Great video, Andrew... Could you do a video of your hugelbeet that you are or will plant into... I think, you have a great idea here and I would like to plan to have some space set aside, like your doing, in our homestead.

Hi Ollie,

We just so happened to make a video about the stage of the hugel bed this morning! When I have it all uploaded I will be sure to post a link on this.

Once the bed is complete and planted we will be making a video about how we have planted it, as well as taking pictures of how the plants are doing.

Cheers!
Andrew

Great, I look forward to it...curious how you'll build the hugelbeet and what spacing you'll use for your new transplant trees...

Wyomiles Hogan wrote:Thanks Andrew. Great soil! Looks like the big tree really puts out a lot of leaves.

So do you see any really old trees that have fallen and are in contact with the soil? Does there seem to be any decomposition with those logs? Any insects etc helping to break them down ? Just seems that if locust last so long that there would be old logs and branches laying all over the place not decomposing ?

There was a fair amount of branch material that was on the ground not decomposing. it was not punky at all.

There were also a lot of dead and dry branches still on the large tree as well. So that is pretty good indication that the wood is rot resistant. I did not see any large logs of of locust in the area so I can't help with that.

There were certainly a lot leaves. That little nook was a sort of leaf trap for some of the surrounding oak trees as well, so it makes it look a bit more leafy.