Hugelkultur - Mistake On Assembling

Hello:
I tried to assemble my first hugelkultur but made a mistake.  I dug the trench and the big logs placement went below the soil surface.  After adding the mulch it is not much higher than the soil surface - say about 10 inches.  I do have some trench left around the base - say about 8 inches.  Should I break it down and reassemble?  Or should I grow  plants in it and add more over the years?  I live in an area that gets 12 - 14 inches of rain but it has been drought lately.

I can’t advise you on what to do, but I can tell you how use the hugelkultur concept.

First, I don’t make hills. The tropical sun, combined with our wind, sucks the moisture out of things. Hills dry put faster than flat surfaces. Then we often get rain in  torrential downpours, so the rain tends to sheet off of slopes. To combat these problems, I make pits.

Before I ever heard the term hugelkultur, I was making layered pits. I’d line to lower part with logs that I wanted to get rid of, assuming that they would very slowly rot over the years. Next in went smaller branches, with soil, compost, garden waste, and garbage packed in to exclude air pockets. This fill would fill the hole up to soil level. Then I’d top it with scores of layering, like lasagna, of all sorts of organic trash mixed with some soil. Trash= weeds, lightweight brush cut up using a lawnmower, garbage, manure, soil, rock dust, burnt bone,  etc. it surely took a while, but I’d get a good 1-2 foot deep layer of this before planting. It eventually rotted and settled down to surface level or little below.

My "hugelpits" work well for me. I’ve never had to irrigate, they hold enough moisture, capturing the rain. I haven’t had to add fertilizer, since the pit is one giant compost pit. I do keep the surface mulched to keep the sun and wind off the growing surfaces.

Sounds to me like you have something like my "hugelpits". So maybe just keep adding compost to the surface each year, like I do, would work for you.

What if your first one is Type A and do another a bit higher for Type B and then moving forward, you can choose which works best. One thing that I like and respect (and also find frustrating ) about permaculture is that the "Observe and Interact" puts my exuberance on a bit of a slower track however it is proving to be very fruitful when I can embrace it.

Is there enough soil on top of the logs to grow plants in?

Sounds like it needs more small sticks & soil to gain the full benefits of hugelkultur. It takes fresh logs a very long time to decompose.  

Doesn't sound like a mistake to me, just a variation. If you need a raised hugel to control water flow or for specific plant needs, you can add to this one. Some plants might do better on a north slope than a south slope, or at the top or the bottom of a raised hugel. But you don't know until you try it. I bury logs and sticks on a flat bed. It seems to work fine. After a year or two I dig them up and distribute the rotten wood evenly and bury more rotten logs.

What kind of mulch did you use?

As Thom asked is there enough soil to grow plants in?

Go ahead is so, and do this as an experiment to see how it works for you.

Thank you for your input.  Great advice.  I do have enough soil and compost on top of the twigs to grow in.  Then I used cleaned straw for mulch.  I will start at the surface for my next one to gain the height and compare the results.  The area is small and long - say 3 feet x 12 feet - so I may only try for two feet high for this second one.

I also do my hugels dug down-- "hugelbeds". If you deal with drought they may present a nice way for you to catch and hold rainwater in the spongy decaying wood, for example.