Permies Poll: Do you currently have a Hugel?

Good Evening,




I have been having a lot of fun with these Permies Polls and have noticed that people tend to vote generally aligned. I'm trying to find the things that we are split on and I'm curious if this will be it. Hugelkultur is a way of planting with the utilization of rotting logs. Do you currently have a Hugel that you tend? If you do please post photos! If you do not, do you plan on having one? Why or why not?


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Currently, I do not.

There are plans on a log berm that I am inoculating with mushrooms to eventually be morphed into a Hugelkultur but that isn't for some time.

We have three, with two more coming maybe this spring.
These are small hugles.under our raised beds.

I’m not against them, but I don’t have much room and my soil is not well-suited to hugel building.

I have three.  All are different.  I'm building 2-3 more this spring.  I beat the drought with mine this past year.  

I have a half-buried hugel, two normal hugels (which we the inspiration for my tricks to keep dirt from sliding off a hugel thread), a hugel garden bed between my fruit trees, a small hugel surrounded by wattled bamboo, and of course the hugel herb spiral of randomness. So at least 6 hugelkultur beds!

I dug out a French drain, by hand, at the outflow of a fish pond, with a lot of labour, and installed a deep hugel bed of mostly rotted wood. Maybe it was too deep. But honestly I have seen zero results from this in our drought years. My growies don't know it's there. So in my situation it was a complete waste of time, sad to say.

Top dressing with miracle mulch, on the other hand, has been an explosive success. Lesson learned.

EDIT:
I would like to temper this -- perhaps my comments were too harsh. People are building hugels and hugel beds, and they do work.

Just not for me, so far -- but the principles are valid. My next attempt will use half-rotted wood in a different way, soaked with things that make plants happy and placed just on the edge of subsoil, and just within reach of annual vegetables. The adventure continues, in this drought.  Let's experiment and see what works!

Do hugel beds count? I have 3 of those.

Lost my pictures when my phone broke.

Yeah, what counts? I have several raised beds that have logs and sticks underneath the soil. And I have a single hugelmound that's about three feet wide and tall by six feet long -- I'm not sure most people would count that, but maybe?

Another vote for hugelbeds: I have hugeled all of my garden beds at one time or another.

I'd consider anything 'heugelly' to be a hugel. You got rotting logs to give your plants a drink? Boom. Hugel.

I think I accidentally thumbed down on yes. But yes I have them. My big one is pretty much level with the ground now. I didn’t pack it nearly as good as I should have. I dug it down 4-5’ when I had a backhoe here for redoing septic. It was initially about 3’ above 3years ago. I gave up on growing annuals in this area because Bermuda said thank you for the hugel and all these wood chips. So now that’s where my blackberries are. I can live with the perennials being messy. I’d stroke out if I had grass in my tomatoes lol. So I moved those beds to the other side of the yard that’s only native grass. Easy to control.

My raised beds are 2’ish tall and all have a layer of wood in the bottom. Currently there’s 4 of those for the annuals. 2more will be in ground this year until raised beds can be made.

I will after this weekend. A little one, but that is a start...

j

I built my first one in 2019 with soft wood that was 3 years dried/rotten already.  After 4 years mounded up, it failed to keep the soil moist, even with heavy mulch.  I decided to tear out the mound and level it off.  

I do all raised flat hugel beds.  I've got quackgrass that will invade if there's no barrier.  

I see there is some variation. Just to review the etymology, huegel (the German orthography has a "U" with an umlaut- those little dots over a vowel that signify a most definitely non-English "pernunciation" but it can be spelled as I did, and I don't know the keystroke combo) There are some folks who are describing systems similar to mine. I'm working a half-acre mostly by hand. My late wife did hire a guy with a tractor to speed up the transition to garden/orchard from being the lot for "Big Daddy Ed's Quality Used Cars" What I heard Mollison say was "wood" and "woody material" and "dead stems" "green branches" and "turf" (upside down) The front yard had an instant lawn, and there the turf was really easy to take up and move around, but I assume there are still some chem-nasties from the rolled lawn farm, and I'm still pulling out green plastic mesh. The back yard  probably has more than just auto parts, and a few wheels and tires. When I hit a gravel seam/path from the Used-car days I mine it, and store it for setting poles and posts. The mound bed ingredients I learned boiled down to: all sorts of vegetation, green or brown. finished compost, fresh contents of the kitchen bucket, turf (upside down) and woody material of any sort. (I like green-leafy branches best, especially alder and (drum roll- hold your breath! -SCOT'S BROOM!!!) I haven't seen a single seedling result, and I use the broom stems/trunks for making shillelaghs, walking sticks and the like. I wouldn't use yew or black locust wood, eh? But green black locust branches are great, if nasty spiny. (and if you are cutting branches off a locust tree it will respond with growing more and bigger spines!)The German reference I found for a Huegel Kultur emphasized fruit tree prunings, which are great. Roses work but the thorns will add your blood to the mix. Roadkill is good too, and I've given many a dead possum a proper send off to the great garbage dump in the sky, garlanded with flowers, poor devil. I also use the contents of the kitchen compost bucket, and compost activator #1, (AKA "Vitamin P", a fine nitrogen source, without the possible parasite involvement of using #2), finished compost for inoculant, and soil from all layers, top to sub, saving the top soil for topping the pile, and I plant it right away. Legumes and cucurbits seem well-suited for the first crop after building, 6-12 months after commencing, beans, corn, tomatoes don't like it much, until it's more broken down. I've grown some huge squash in these new beds. Just start the seeds in hills of finished compost, and since you're watering the squash plant, the pile will finish faster, no? It seems that a pile which fits between paths, which has the footprint of a manageable garden bed, takes a bit of care to build tall enough to heat up. Call it a work of fiber art! Criss-cross layering and neat work will pay off in more rapid rotting, don't forget a bit of finished compost with every deposit of kitchen scraps. (my first pile after two years south teaching English and learning Spanish was made with Mt. Saint Helen's ash, so there's a homeopathic dilution happening in my piles, OMG! Currently closing in on 10 years of site occupation, this garden is getting pretty good. It's a good way to make sure clueless garden visitors don't step in the garden beds, because the paths are mostly quite obvious.
(caution: imminent tool rave...) I use compost forks and tined hoes primarily. I do have a native population of "gardener" snakes (in the city!) who eat slugs, and a tined tool is much easier on them than a shovel blade. I get a lot of European tools from Earth Tools in Kentucky, (Austria and Italy) Hida Hardware in Berkeley (best Japanese Hardware in the US, but there is one in Seattle and another in Portland where you can at least get a decent kama sickle which is good for harvesting green material for a compost) and I haunt the yard sales and Goodwill for old solid-forged tools from when they were made well in the USA, or in Sheffield England (see the flic "the full Monty" for that story: at first I was wrongly pissed-off at Paul Hawken) English garden tools now are made in India, heavier, with softer steel. About the only good garden tool made in the US anymore IMHO, is the Pulaski, which is a fire fighting tool. Pulaski, the inventor, was a forest ranger in Idaho, eh? A national hero for leading his crew to safety in a cave when the wind turned. Last one in, he was blinded by the flames and so he had time to design the axe/hoe combo that is #1 for grubbing out stumps, roots, bamboo shoots and such work.  And still made in the USA, by Council, because wildfire is a growth industry.

I don't currently because apartment.  Will I have one in future?  I think when I start raised beds someday when such is possible I'll likely toss some wood and etc. in before soil/compost, but eventually it will "settle" after a few years.  Will I renew it?  Probably not unless I get convinced its necessary, but I think it could help garden beds get a good start in my yard someday when a yard exists for us.

We have... kind of. Since last autumn. Nothing's planted on it yet, and no logs, just a pile of old, rotten branches with soil on top. Don't know if it counts.

Also built a more proper one at my parents' place. I made a trench for biochar making originally, but picked the wrong spot. As soon as the snow started melting, it filled up with water, and as soon as the water drained out in late spring, BAM, firing ban. So I just dumped some of the larger-diameter wood I had been planning to char in the trench, and covered it with the dug-up soil. Still nothing intentionally planted on that one either. Soon maybe.

I first read about Huegelkultur (that's Deutsch, ne?) in the mid 80's, and there was nothing about logs: the predominant class of wood mentioned was fruit tree prunings. (which I figure have more nutrition and rot faster and promote a more garden friendly microflora) For ericaceous plants- Vaccinium and relatives, I would think that coniferous species would be preferable. And in the city (which I am, barely) there is less access to big wood. (Although this year and the last have been a frikkin' massacre for the trees, with snow and ice.) This has so far been born out with my (undocumented) experimentation, Any large wood I put in will go into a fairly deep trench- into the subsoil which I then reserve for composting layers. Seems to be working pretty well.

Yes, but not the big berm. I dig holes in my garden to throw lawn and kitchen waste in. Some years back started adding sticks and later logs. 3-4 feet deep. When it gets full I pile dirt on top and plant whatever veggies. After a few years I have worked my way back to the beginning and those logs are mostly rotted away. Mixed back in the soil it makes really nice soil.

My new garden is semi-arid, so I'm not sure whether the typical raised hugel is a good option. Plus any wood I can get will be used as firwwood, not buried.If I could find punky wood, burying it in sunken beds might work.

I've made several hugels over 10+ years. The most recent (last winter and spring) was a hugel mound herb spiral. I have a hugel berm that allows higher ground for some shrubs in an area that is basically a swamp over much of the winter, but close enough to my main living space that I want also some non-swamp plants.

A small one - not impressed. The steep sides are difficult to plant in, and tend to erode, and the top is hard to keep weeded. I have switched to raised beds with log sides (unsplit cordwood placed vertically) and some wood/ lots of woodchips in the fill. They hold water just as well, and are way easier to manage.

Yes, we do have Hügelkultur beds, a total of 7 total, around 500'. Great process and addition to our grow areas around the house. We live on a ridge, so the beds and swales allow us to trap water, preventing run-off.

I first learned about the concept from Self-Sufficient Me, an Australian YouTube channel who was using the concept in his raised beds.  I did basically the same with some raised beds we purchased for the city property.  (They are a bit tall...I should have gone for the 6" shorter version.)  Anyway, whether it truly works like a Hugel is uncertain to me - the primary thing is that I was able to use downed trees from our country property to help fill the beds, thereby requiring less soil / compost for fill.  I probably used wood that is too fresh, but the beds (8'x3') sink in the range of 3-6" each year thus far, so we've topped with compost and it made space for mulch that won't blow away.

I also sort of applied the concept in small berms I created on the acreage.  The idea was to slow / stop runoff from occurring and infiltrate water.  If there was too much water, it should direct to a low spot that we ultimately intend to turn into a garden for plants that prefer more moisture (sweetgrass for one, perhaps watercress).  Anyway, I cultivated a curved strip, then laid down a row of logs, then created the berms by scooping the broken up soil over the logs.  It isn't a true Huegel nor swale / berm combination, but it's what we did and have since been planting it out.  Last fall several apple cores got buried into one of them.

We have 3 modified hugel-raised beds....super productive! And the plan is to build a dozen large huglekulture berms to help slow runoff on the slope to our wooded ravine and pond. Great way to get rid of tree debris and improve soil life!

Yes, buried beds, surface beds, raised beds.

I'd have to literally import material to make a good hugelkultur as the local trees here do not decompose well. That is why I don't have one nor plan on making one anytime soon.

If one of our oak trees fall one day maybe I will give it a try.

I voted 'yes'. It seems everything 'hugely' counts. So I have a 'hugel' in my front yard: it has pieces of wood in it and it's higher than the surrounding garden (it has dry walls made of old bricks to keep that height). And I have one 'hugelbed' in my allotment garden, it's small, but it has logs in it.

I do declare that I first heard of hugelcultur right here on Permies! And I was smitten…especially because our first year homesteading we had a huge…and I mean HUGE flood. Creek overflowed. Big logs tearing through our field like toothpicks. So after said flood I had plenty of logs & branches to get rid of. So hugelcultur it was! I dug by hand a deep trench about 75’ long & filled it w logs, branches, leaves & some mulch. Topped it all off w very nice soil. I let it sit all winter then in the spring I asked y’all at Permies what you recommended as a first trial run with growing veggies on it. Mix it up was the answer. So I did! Zucchini, beans, tomatoes, pumpkins, peppers, milk thistle, kale, nasturtium.
The top does dry out here in hot western NC so I did have to water a fair amount. I had a pretty nice harvest. But I was not happy that the squash borers found the hugelcultur berm.
This season I’ll do the same…top w compost & plant w mixed seeds & plants.

Not a hugel bed per se, but 4, 20 inch tall raised beds with hugel in the bottom half.

I have a small thicket of trees and bushes on my property line, next to my garden, that I have always contemplated doing so many things with, a smallish hugelkultur being one of them. Currently, it's a mess of 2 young black walnut trees, 2 old azaleas, a few thorn bushes, a lot of lilac, and an unkempt pine bush/tree of some sort.

Mine is "in the making". In our forest, there are a number of oaks that have the wilt. So there are lots of dead oaks, large ones and just scrub oaks. The big ones, I leave standing. I am slowly replacing them with other things :maples, apple seedlings...wild plums, mulberry..There are lots and lots of wild cherry trees, some are good to eat.
The dead oaks are being piled in a long line about 20 ft. from the North South road to our West. I wanted in particular a good windbreak since west of us is a deserted plain, so the wind really whips. That's one function. The other function is for wild bird habitat [ground nesters in particular, who can nest early or hide in the debris]. We've seen quails and also one grouse. Rabbits use it sometimes.
The pile started between two rows of timbers planted in the ground and wood piled in that cradle. Well, it got pretty tall, taller than me. And it is pretty long [like 200 ft]. As time goes by, that wood is rotting now, and I keep piling logs alongside. We can no longer see through to a height of 4-5 feet. Deer have to walk around, so at the north end, we have a blind that we can use during deer season. [We have not had luck yet, but we see signs that they are going alongside the long pile, then cutting Eastward. I am not yet at the time of planting something in it. Remember that the subsoil is 35 ft of sand!
Now, it is much too dangerous to start a fire because we've had a terrible drought all of last year. The winter has been mild, without any snow to speak of, but I'd like to try my hand at making char. So maybe I will keep adding to this hugel in the meantime. The snow is completely gone and I worry that some of my trees will not have had enough chilling hours to give a good crop.

Years ago.
Made a heap of branches, centered on a stump, edged on short side by wood rounds set on cut edge.
Had no turf, tried to put mud & seeds on it. Sides too steep but roughly worked. Short-lived clover & buckwheat, soon reverted to nasturtium & pellitory. Never worked for vegetables.
Rounds were stable & rotted away nicely.
Branches are the favorite thing of bermuda grass & poke. I tried to consolidate them as they broke down, but they didn't break down much.
The shade & moisture of the branch pile helped the stump begin to bear mushrooms & now it's almost broken down enough to remove & use the hole for planting.
It's dark out now, so no picture.
Just looks like a weedy mound anyway. 12 or 18 inches high.

I have built one almost 10 years ago, in May 2014.  I removed the sod and some soil, put birch logs into the hole and built upwards. The hugel was approximately 5 feet above the ground when finished. I have mulched it and I have planted it immediately. It did not hold water, literally and figuratively. It required watering, without that nothing wanted to grow on it. I might have made a mistake using too much wood inside, that's for sure. My soil is almost pure sand, so it did not hold on the wood well. Also, water was draining fast. With years, this hugel was a home for many generations of snakes who just loved overwintering inside, lay eggs and have their pencil-like babies. It has collapsed into one third of its height over those 10 years. Last year I have simply covered it with strawbales and I have grown squash on such mound, which hardly is still a hugel I guess. In those strawbales that hold water from winter and spring rains, it performs well finally. I suspect it will turn into a raised bed over time.

I don't have one yet, but found a bunch of decaying logs that I plan to use to make one. I'm excited to try this!

A day course in fungiculture I attended had one species buried in a trough of woodchip. Other species supplied as plugs went into drilled holes in logs. Sounds like if you're using fresh material you could seed it and bury in a hugel. You may also get some wild species come up regardless. Anyone with experience of getting edible mushrooms from your hugel?

I have a raised bed hugel. It is under my raspberries and they have grown fantastic! Just a question about hugel beds. How do you that have them add wood to them to renew the bed? I don't like the idea of ripping a big nole in it to replace the rotted wood and was wondering?

It's not pretty, but I have a brush pile that I will be adding dirt to until it is a more proper hugelkulture pile.

Suraun Hassani wrote:I don't have one yet, but found a bunch of decaying logs that I plan to use to make one. I'm excited to try this!

And Welcome to Permies. I feel that the secret is to just keep working at it a little bit every time you have a chance: trying to build a huge one in a day is like weekend Warrior syndrome: You get exhausted, you get sore and the pleasure goes out of it very fast!. and it doesn't need to be *only* big logs: smaller logs, pruning twigs are all good... Adding soil to it can come much later, IMHO.

Timothy Goller wrote:I have a raised bed hugel. It is under my raspberries and they have grown fantastic! Just a question about hugel beds. How do you that have them add wood to them to renew the bed? I don't like the idea of ripping a big nole in it to replace the rotted wood and was wondering?

I did not yet feel the need to 'renew'. But I think I would add one or more new log(s) when I think the 'hugel' has sunk in. I would not replace the rotted wood, it can go on rotting until it has all 'composted'.