Raised Hugel bed from pallets

We've got a lot of steep slopes on our homestead, and I'll be terracing eventually.

One area in particular needed some work sooner rather than later. When the previous owner of the land was preparing for sale, a grove of  invasive Scotch Broom (Cytisus scoparius ) got cut down to showcase a (wonderful) view. The resultant wood was left laying in piles, which will be a fire hazard. The soil obviously began to erode away, which was probably why the Scotch Broom had been planted years ago.

Since this area also gets a lot of morning and afternoon sun, I decided to try to address both issues with raised hugel beds. My plan is to build one of these on each contour interval of the slope, and build up a lot of good soil in them for eventual use on the terraces.

Since these are not permanent, I decided to use pallets. Cheap and disposable. I used 4 HT pallets for the build, with another 3  HT pallets deconstructed with my Pallet Buster (get one!) to provide slats to fill in the gaps in the walls. I dug narrow trenches with a hoe to level out the "walls", providing a relatively level bed.

I lashed the 4 pallets together to secure the walls together, after setting them edge on into the trenches, using some cordage I had laying around. The result was very secure. I drove 2 wooden stakes into the ground along each wall.

I haven't filled the bed yet, but you can see from the pictures that sourcing the wood layer won't be a problem.

Next time I make one of these, I will secure the deconstructed vertical slats that cover the  gaps with two or three horizontal slats per side, rather than with multiple screws on each vertical slat.

These are big, deep beds, but will hopefully allow us  to produce and improve a lot of soil while growing full sun deep root crops.


 

Those look great!
I build most of my beds with pallets,and fill them with leaves/wood.
I orient the pallets with the three 2x4 stringers running vertically and the top deck  facing inwards.
I never fill in gaps, but it doesn't seem  to matter.
Some of them are full height, but most of them are cut down to a comfortable sitting height.

Your bed looks much better than mine do!
I'm inspired to change the orientation and facing of the pallets the next time I build a bed.
I probably still won't fill in the gaps, but I do have a suggestion for you on that front.

Instead of screws, use brads or staples from an pneumatic nail gun.
Very cheap, strong, fast and easy.
I have clad 20 plus feet  of fence with pallet decking board this way.
A brad nailer is like a spot welder for pallet deck boards, so if you are gonna use them a alot, it's totally worth investing in one.

William,

Thank you. I will give the brad nailer a try. The screws do take up a lot of time.

I almost always end up building these pallet structures far away from my air tools, but I have been wanting a battery operated brad nailer for a while.

And thanks for the compliment!

I make similar, but on hormones!


I'm using homemade corner brackets to hold the 4 sides together - 8 per bed and I've got two of these large beds built. The level is 3 feet, so the side walls are a bit over 6 ft. A local shop gets a limited number of pallets that length by 30 inches tall which is a lovely working height if you're getting a little older...

Places where I have used pallets for beds and *not* filled in all of the cracks, I've had a greater tendency for rats to move in, so I think it's worth it.

If you're in a spot with lots of freeze/thaw cycles +/- a lot of rain, I would consider putting some sort of a strap/rope around the top for extra support from the outward pressure.

If you're filling it with lots of wood, expect the soil level to drop a lot the first year, and lesser amounts subsequent years. True hugel beds do that also, although the better you pack soil around the branches, the less trouble that will be. At least one of my beds ended up with too much organic matter, and as I was topping it up, I added thin layers of fairly clay soil and some homemade biochar.

One of the beds like the picture, currently has kale and green onions growing (not fast due to low light, but better than nothing). The second one needs work done on it. I covered it in plastic during an early freeze to try to get a few more cucumbers and hope that a pumpkin that was formed to ripen. There are still bean plants that will have some seed on them, so I need to collect the seed, chop and drop most of what's left, and then cover with leaves for the winter. The pumpkin's on the kitchen counter - not sure it's far enough along to be anything more than chicken feed, but I tried!

I feel like should point readers to a YouTube channel, dirtpatchheaven.
She has repeatably demonstrated using pallets beds like ours as hotbeds.
I'm not a subscriber, but her videos on the topic are good information.