After sending my Dad
permaculture playing cards around x-mas he came out to visit me and meet his first grandson and we talked about many things including building a hugelkultur bed. He has an 80 acre horse rescue in eastern Colorado in zone 5a near Colorado Springs. He has an abundance of cottonwood growing in a creek bed so plenty of wood in various stages of decay. I told him that it sounds like a perfect place to experiment with hugelkultur. He has loads and loads of horse manure and spoiled hay. He has a bobcat and tractor with a dump trailer. He returned this week and has begun construction of his first permaculture project, a hugelkultur bed. He text me a handful of pictures today that show some progress and he admitted that he is psyched to be doing this. I think he is hooked. I ordered him five pounds of blue oyster mushroom spawn in sawdust to inoculate the wood once it's all piled up.
So here is his question and my response:
Q: "I am curious to how thick the cover materials should be and how they will hold at the sides. The plan is clear to me but it seems like the sides would want to slide. Yah know?"
My answer referenced the video on richsoil. The one with Sepp: "The stakes with the horizontal branches are key to prevent that as is planting deep rooting rhubarb and horseradish right off the bat. Dandelions are also edible and have deep tap roots, grow in nearly all climates and attract beneficial insects too..."
The cover materials he mentioned are soil aprox. 8-10", composted horse manure aprox. 6" and spoiled/ soiled horse stall bedding straw and wood shavings aprox. 6" in that order.
He plans on building a bed 7' tall and 22' long. He mentioned 8' wide which now sounds too wide as it would be challenging to reach the top, so I'll be sharing the info I get get hopefully from here with him.
Is 8 feet at the base too wide?
Are the wooden branches used as natural stakes the solution to the sides sliding down or when constructed properly does that not typically come into play?
Does anyone here or in the Rockies forum have a good first year pioneer planting seeding mix in mind and can he expect to plant and harvest veggies the first year? The property is 6000' above sea level and an hour NE of Colorado Springs. I haven't found a good resource or list of hardy drought tolerant species info for his climate. Any advice would be nice to share with him.