Spring 2025 Hugel Planning

I'd hoped to participate in the 2024 GAMCOD, but the timing didn't work to be able to prepare a bed this year to qualify.  Based in part on our time as SEPPers at the end of September, we came away with some ideas as changes we would like to make to our property.



Unlike Wheaton Labs, we don't have an abundance of trees / wood.  That said, every year we have some branches / trees come down and have some set aside over the years, so we can make something work.  An alternative I've considered as well is that if we are short of wood to bury, I can do a short hugel, participate in the 2025 GAMCOD, then build higher as wood becomes available in the future.

I made the video yesterday, then worked with the scythe to clear an area and cleaned it up with the tractor, creating a pile of hay nearby (of course, I placed it where I'll want to access the pile of dirt with the tractor...sigh).  I also moved some wood from a tree that came down in September nearby.  I used my measuring wheel (metric) and measured off a plot to place the bed.  The GAMCOD limit is 200 square feet, which converts to a bit over 18.5 square meters so I measured it out as 2 m by 9 m.  The markers are tough to see in the image, but they are there.

This bed will be oriented east-west, so will ultimately have some different microclimates which should prove interesting.  To start with, we will plant primarily annuals to get an immediate yield for the GAMCOD initiative.  As time marches forward, I see more perennial and woody plants being involved.  In the latter part of the build, I'd like to bury some raspberry canes (we have the type that bears on first year wood, so can be pruned down annually) - we've had some grow the following year from the prunings being in contact with the ground.  We have some rhubarb to move to a better location, some horseradish that needs to be moved to an easier location to be able to harvest roots, black currants that need to be renewed which implies cuttings, and various odds and ends including sunchokes.  I could also see asparagus going into the bed in the long term.  

The location is chosen in part due to its proximity to the pile of dirt, but it will also help with dust abatement from the gravel road, noise from traffic, and perhaps some privacy elements.

Every winter we get snow, and in our windblown location, that implies drifting - every winter is different, but whenever we make changes like this, it does impact drift patterns, which also impacts spring melt and drainage.  Our predominant winds are from the NW, with secondary direction from the SE.  Since every winter is different from a snowfall perspective, it is tough to see what changes impact over time.  I'd love to be able to plan and shift where some of the drifting occurs, but I may not live that long to be able to confirm impacts.

There are many other elements involved with this.  I don't see building privacy berms like you see at base camp...they certainly serve their purpose but wouldn't be ideal in our context.  Since we don't want to create frost pockets, I can't see digging down, which will make it unlikely that this hugel will qualify for a Badge Bit.  

Well, we got started on the build a bit over a week ago.



My wife and I were out, so I had some help.  I got started by edging the perimeter to be able more easily remove as much of the quack grass sod as possible.  The front end loader on the tractor isn't the ideal tool for this, but I preferred that to renting a sod cutter.  By the end of the area, the operator (looking firmly in the mirror) had gotten better, so there were fewer delays from actual digging.  Following that, we got going on laying down some wood.  While the piles pictured weren't that far away (ones pictured were about 75 m distant), we did wind up spending a lot of time just moving material.  As time marched on, we laid down some of the removed sod / dirt before calling it quits for the day.  Rain was predicted for the following day, so I wanted to ensure I got some of that disturbed dirt back on so that the rainfall might help to settle some of it further down among the wood.

We could call it about 3 hrs labour for each of us.

Later in the week I got back out by myself and continued the work.



A bunch of time was again spent shuttling materials around.  I hadn't considered that the wood pile, which we started after purchasing the property in 2008 primarily from fallen / dead branches and trees, contained a bunch of spongy material at the bottom, especially some of the logs in contact with the earth.  Of course, in spite of warming weather and some sun, some logs at the bottom of the pile were still frozen down.

All told, I worked on this around 4 hours by myself (just me and my trusty Kubota) on this day.

I'd sort of mentioned it in the previous video, but my wife suggested we use some of the bigger diameter logs on end to facilitate easier access to higher areas of the hugel.  

She joined me again for what was hoped to be the final day of moving earth and wood.  



If I haven't previously done so, I should apologize for the audio quality of the videos.  In case you haven't noticed from some of the wider shots, this area is very wide open and windless days are rarities.

We did have a few finer details we wanted to work on as we finished the hugel.  One is that we wanted to use some smaller pieces of wood to be able to act as support to keep more of the dirt on the pile without simply slumping down.  I pruned some of the black currants existing on the property and utilized some of those lower on the north side.  The thought there is that black currants tend to propagate easily as cuttings.  If some of these take, then perhaps this hugel shifts over time to more perennial / berry production.  If none of them do, these cuttings will just act like sticks to help hold mulch and dirt up.  It shouldn't have been a surprise to me that the interior of the dirt pile was still somewhat frozen...it made for easier digging to come from the south side.  I also shovelled up some dirt from a drainage project worked on a year or two ago.

On the narrow ends of the hugel we laid down some raspberry canes I'd pruned over the winter.  I don't know if they'll take, but if they do we can have more of an experiment.  After laying them down I threw dirt on them by hand to hold them in place.  We shall see.

We mulched with grass cut right around the site last fall.  With all the wind we get I wouldn't be surprised if much of it blows away...it may work better once we have some plants growing to be able to help hold it in place.  We shall see.  Finally, we planted some sunchoke roots we had on hand along the top of the hugel and I threw down a small patch of radish seed.

I look forward to seeing how this works out.  For reference, the hugel wound up with an average height of about 42".  Measuring along the sloped sides came to about 5'.  Considering the width of the bed is 2 m (just under 6.6'), getting 10' of surface from two sides gives an increase in planting space by about 1.5 times.  It would be a bit less than that as the ends also slope inward...I'll have to remember to take some additional measurements of the end when I get out there again.

One of my hopes is to be able to describe some microclimate difference by experimenting with planting some of the same plants on both the north and south side of the hugel.  As this bed will be used to participate in the 2025 GAMCOD project, I won't subject my most sun-loving plant varieties to that experiment.

About 3 hours each this day leading to a total of 10 hours for me and 6 hours for my wife.  If we count the time for mowing the area in the fall and measuring and marking the plot as negligible, this 9 m by 2 m hugel took us about 16 hours of effort.  A considerable amount of that was ferrying material to the bed site.

Great start to your plot Derek - thank you for the detailed posts! I'll be interested to see how it progresses. It sounds like planning ahead is the key to making this work well...I wonder what the ideal layout of the materials would be? Maybe we could do a 'fastest way to build a hugel' guide with suggested layout of materials...I guess every site is different though, and the materials you'd use would different.

I can imagine that practically speaking in a sunny climate having a shady and sunny garden in one hugel can be very useful for planting. Many leafy crops like lettuce and brassica can struggle in hot sunshine and would welcome a bit of shade. They're not so highly valued in gamcod as that focusses more on calories, but I think that having some salad garnishes could be a very practical way of getting a nice useful ground cover perhaps.
Will you need to irrigate the bed? Did the rain fall as predicted to settle things in?

Great idea to get some perennials in at the same time. I generally find that currants take better in autumn, but you never know!

Thanks Nancy.  

I think things have settled somewhat, but it is hard to tell since I can't see into the spaces within the hugel bed.  That said, we get wind, so the grassy mulch isn't all in place any more.  Yesterday I saw that someone has been excavating so there will be air spaces within...darn ground squirrels (based on size of holes).

Some of the leaves of currants are showing green yet, so they may yet take.  That said, the idea was to have them as part of the structure to act a bit like lattice to hold soil and mulch.  Propagating them would be a bonus.  We do have some rhubarb that has suffered after a building project left them shadier than they'd like, so long term I can see some of them moving to this bed.

I agree on the greens / shady side of the bed.  I do have some red cabbage started in soil blocks that should wind up here.  I may throw some kale seed down as well.  We have general ideas about what we want in here (beets, carrots, radish, potato, squash/melons/pumpkins, beans are definite).  There are other direct-seeded crops that we may be able to put down as we assess things.

I'm cautious about putting too many root crops in.  There may be enough wood in the bed for them not to grow that well (misshapen or stunted) and I have to wonder how things would look at harvest time when pulling a bunch out at the same time.  Between the ground squirrels and the geese, to say nothing of rabbits and passing deer, wildlife damage is always a possibility.

I do wish I'd watched the videos of the Boot's hugel build before doing this.  As you note, the available material is a big factor.  With Wheaton Labs being somewhat carved out of forest, woody material is a bit more available there.  A lot of the bulk of what I used was stove length cut from downed trees over the years.  Now, it would have been ideal if I could have built the hugel near those wood piles.  I was also somewhat lazy in shortening the longer branchy materials we had on hand.  It certainly would have made the build easier if we'd brought over all the materials ahead of time.  Alternatively, it is nice to be able to do one task for a while, then switch tasks.  

We shall see how it turns out.  At minimum, I have a mound that will have an impact on wind, especially once there are some tougher plants growing out the top of it.  From my perspective, GAMCOD is the short term excuse, but I do want to be thinking longer term.  After spending some time with Paul in September, I also have other ideas how hugels could be useful in our landscape from blocking overspray to wind abatement.  However, not having an abundance of wood makes that more challenging.  We do have an abundance of dirt / soil though so I may work toward some element of that remediation based more on earth than a woody base.  Many things to ponder on....

Planting is underway, although one can't tell from the video.



On Saturday I was out in the wind and planted some potatoes (leaning heavily on the Ruth Stout method of thick mulch) and onion sets.  The potato seed is leftover from the 2024 harvest on the property...it is interesting how different varieties have such different storage characteristics.  Today I put in some bean seeds (Red Peanut variety) which we grew last season.  I intent to put a few more in once things get going.

I fought with seed again today...at least beet seed is large enough to handle.  Once again, we had gusting winds which made dealing with lighter seeds a challenge.  I'm also learning that the lack of stability of soil on a new hugelkultur makes seeding an interesting challenge.  Had I understood that ahead of time, I may have planned a bit differently as to what is going into the bed.

Yesterday it was 36 C (98 F) and overnight Friday / Saturday morning the prediction is for -1 C (30 F).  We are predicted to start getting some rain showers overnight lasting into the weekend, so I wanted to get some stuff done while I didn't have to deal with muck.  

I did start some seeds in the house here.  As part of that process, I found "EcoGrow" pots, which are made in Canada from recycled paper.  It is nice to be able to repurpose waste like that and it means I didn't need to resort to peat pots.  Since I have some cucurbits among the starts and they don't like root disturbance, I didn't want to use a communal space for them.  These pots can be planted and will effectively decompose in ground.  I also have some cabbage starts that are going to make their way to this bed, but I simply used soil blocks for them.

We shall see how things work out.