Impromptu largely unplanned hugel

We are on top of a mountain here in Arkansas and I threw some rotten logs/trees into a pile with some top soil removed during pecan tree planting and the rotten wood compost/soil from the base of the two rotten trees.  My wife had thrown some garden debris onto the pile and lo and behold a volunteer pumpkin started several weeks ago.  This was in the midst of an on and off drought/near drought.  The leaves in midst of this hunker of a plant are about 16" in diameter.  The picture show 2 pumpkins currently that are each in excess of 25 pounds.   I think they are princess pumpkins.   When we started watering it,  it took off and as the photos show it is covering the entire mountain top hugel mound.   I have watched Paul's hugel videos online and on world domination gardening.   This mound had none of the forethought or care that they did.   I was jokingly calling it a hugel when in fact it was really just a well composted trash heap started within the past 6 months.  Well it must have heard me and decided to prove me wrong.   It is in fact a hugel and I belive will produce several more pumpkins in the next month.   I also included a couple shots of our garden in just its second year. Note sure to bandwidth limitations only 2 photos will accompany this post.

More hugel photos

That is a great-looking plant which means that hugelkultur bed must be doing great also!

Thanks for sharing!

Here are a couple shots of the garden.  We have already culled most of the zucchini plants as the wife is getting sick of eating it every day.   We have a freezer full of zucchini,  pumpkin, tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce, diced tomatoes, green beans, okra. We have a cold room full of pumpkins, acorn squash, butternut squash. Cathy is cooking up sauce as much as she has room on the stove about 3 days a week.   The cold room is full and we have hundreds of pounds of pumpkins yet to harvest.   We are starting,  a little late to sow the fall garden.   It has been a banner year,  and we have been greatly blessed.   Lots of hard work,  but worth every delicious bite.

We have figured out how to defeat the squash bugs without chemicals.   I will share it in a future post,  no time right now.  Back to the garden.

Sincerely,

Ralph

Hi Ralph,

What an awesome looking Squash! Very glad to hear your accidental hugel bed has been so productive and that your year has been filled with abundance.

Eric S.