Started my first hugelkulture bed

Here's the start of my hugel. It's a c shape with the opening roughly towards the south.

I'm still trying to figure out how high to go. I have fresh cut word on the bottom and have added years old cut word that was for heating on top

Question is, how high should I go with big wood before piling on branches? I have access to plenty of fresh wood I can cut but I also need to finish it so I can start planting soon.

Well, nice touch with the curve, good luck getting access all around!

How high? Well I am new at this but my first hugel gave me many lessons, regardless of the advice and copious reading on the subject I have actually discovered more in the act of doing the job. One thing is quite evident, to defy gravity to hold the soil in place one HAS to start with a wide enough base to form a "standard" or "peaked" bed, AT LEAST as wide as you want your bed to be high. If you only want a low rise then the gradient is far more easily tacked, i made a "trial" bed 40" wide and have a domed bed 36" high, this is going to be for herbs and some edible flowers.

Good fortune in your hugel, keep us informed.

Wyll

Unfortunately I have two threads going on this. Check out sun scoop hugel bed? Thread to seeker pictures

I have started planting some but am not finished.

Btw when I put the dirt on my access allows me to push a wheelbarrow around it although it's a little tight on the left

Your hugel looks very similar to mine in size, except mine is on contour and doubling as a swale. We're not in a really cold climate. Mine has just gone through a growing season. It's autumn, (fall), here in New Zealand. It did better than I expected for a first season. I watered it just twice toward the end of a long dry spell and it grew, and is still growing, lots of salad veges, silver beet, amaranth, linseed, buckwheat, globe artichoke, lambs quarters, strawberries, tomatoes, courgette, pumpkin and rhubarb. There are parts that are collapsing in now, I presume that is because the compost we initially packed between the logs and branches is breaking down. I've been cutting tree lucerne, ( tagasaste), and stuffing it in the holesto try to fill the gaps. I've also been sprinkling vegetable seeds around as they ripen eg parsnip, linseed, carrot, lambs quarters, amaranth and quinoa. From now on we'll plant more perennial things such as chilean guava more strawberries and rhubarb, cape gooseberry, jerusalem artichoke etc. Then we'll renew the mulch layer depending how much of a vege seedling cover there is. All the best with yours.

I wa curious about having to add material. Seems to be a normal thing.

I have planted a bunch of starts and put a whole bunch of seeds spread willy nilly all over. Then I found a southern wildflower seed pack that is supposed to cover 1000sq feet and covered the whole thing. I'm going with I better cover it or nature will do it for me.

I'll have some pictures soon. I still have some spots I need to add soil to cover up a branch that poked out its head. Can you post pictures of yours?

Yikes! I'll try. I'm such a techno dunce. Someone explained how on here before but it seems to involve creating an account to store photos online first. Guess I have to bite the bullet sometime.

You should be able to just add up to three pictures right below where you add the text. Says attachments

Here it is planted. Not a lot had sprouted yet though. I need to add mulch cover. I have pretty much everything in there...potatoes, carrots, onions, tomatoes, squash, melons, beans, peas, kohlrabi, basil, pumpkin, rhubarb, artichoke, zucchini, a fruit tree (outside but butted up against it), garlic, and a whole bag of wildflowers.

Hopefully it does well

Oh, I reckon it will.

Updates! Hugelkulture is doing awesome. I had to water some at the start but we have gotten good rain now and it is taking off. Love it so far and it's year one. I do expect to add dirt/compost as I go, every once in awhile I get a small hole I have to fill

I have a mix of starts and seeds in there

Hi. How's it going now? I built a new hugel last winter but the original one needs a bit of repair work. I guess the compost we originally stuffed into all the gaps between the logs and branches has broken down as there seem to be some quite spaces in the interior. Also, there was a dead cow in there which has largely broken down and collapsed. I'm not too sure whether to just pile more stuff, eg wood mulch and/or branches, on top or to remove the soil and pack in more branches then replace the soil or quite what. Any ideas?

I have the same issue with holes and plan on adding more soil in the holes, especially on top. I am going to plant a bunch of perennials this year, asparagus and strawberries and Jerusalem artichokes and more herbs that overwinter here like thyme and oregano. I want to keep up the super diversity I had last year, that was fun, so I'll have annuals and flowers too

I will add mulch to the top again just to keep the weeds from getting too bad.

For yours I would add dirt, that seems to be the biggest issue with using branches, the settling exposes holes.

We've recently started pruning poplars and willows to feed cattle, (It's late summer here), so I'll use them, some soil, (I don't have much spare), and mulch which should fall down through the gaps readily. I'll mulch on top f the new soil too.
I've had artichokes, Jerusalem and Globe, on my older, (2 1/2 yrs), hugel as well as strawberries, day lilies, perennial herbs, rhubarb and a couple of young peach trees, oh, and some black currants. And then there are annuals... potatoes, tomatoes, silver beet, brassicas, flowers and salad veges. It all makes for variety.
Yours sounds as though it's going along nicely.