Alicia's Hugleuktur for PEP (in-progress)

I started this beastly thing and realized that I may have to do the bulk of the planting portion in the spring, so I thought it might make it easier for me to post the progress in its own thread so it's all in one spot when I come back to it later... whenever that actually happens. Haha. It looks like that is probably okay?

Also my connection is slow and won't upload many photos at once... of which I took entirely too many. So multiple posts in a thread may be easier.
It's funny, I usually don't bother to photograph myself/my projects, but since it's a part of getting BB's... I apparently had fun with it! These first photos show where I decided to put the behemoth, and the rather time consuming process required just to prepare the space. I have a LOT of quack grass, and have found that the mulch method and my limited time as a mom of 5 young people didn't prove effective against the invasion. Worse, the mulch and soil amendments made it increasingly vigorous! It reminds me of what they say about antibiotics--if you have quack grass and want to mulch... don't half ass it. 😅🤣 It was too late for this strawberry bed though, so I decided somewhere in the season to start over again and started to neglect it. I am actually going to try to use Ruth Stout composting/mulching and thw trench to hopefully tame the quack grass.
The hugelkultur also claimed the area of 2 rows of potatoes, so I harvested those too. My daughter snapped the photo of me devouring them.

Then I went to get the wood, a partially rotted pine log deck that someone started cutting into rounds but then abandoned. It belongs to my parent's' neighbors, about 2mile away from me.
But then tragedy struck when a strap sitting in the truck bed trailer managed to slip out through a hole the previous owner put in the front of the frame (to accomodate longer boards). Hadn't had that happen before... but then I also meant to remove that strap before going down the road. I'm telling you, after a decade of raising a moderately large number of young children mostly solo, my brain is mush. I forget a lot. 😅
Anyway, I had to swap a tire and splice/re-run the wiring. But I finally got my wood... I wanted at least a few logs cut 6-8' for structural integrity, but also took a lot of rounds since they were sorta in the way anyway.

These photos show the layout/mostly marked area. The logs are 6 & 8' long. The area got a lot wider than I had anticipated... 😅  The neighboring raised bed is is probably going to have to move eventually due to erosion...
I did dig the area out some to get the topsoil & remove the quack grass.

Then I started burying it in dirt, with a few layers of dark, crumbly (and rather heavy!) composted goat bedding mixed in to help jumpstart the decomposition process. The little bits of straw and in it also "stuck" better than straight dirt. I then mulched over everything with the less composted goat bedding, and topped it off with a mixture of garden debris (spent cucumber, melon, potato and squash vines, amaranth and lambsquarter stalks, carrot tops, etc). I may add more debris whenever it finally frosts, and perhaps a few branches for good measure.
My kids sort of fluttered in and out of this project, but some pitched in a little on the ever-expanding trench. That nifty digging tool came in handy... about 1.5-2' down was an ancient creek bed with river stones... 😬 in other news, I now have a nice pile of rocks on the side.
However, my little photographers were with the grandparents when I needed a photographer for a size comparison photo, so I just got one next to my 5' shovel.

I put some of the strawberry plants back into the mound and the raised bed nearby, since they were just sitting out with their poor naked roots. But... was I supposed to photograph each of the plants before I planted them??? I hope I don't have to rip them all back out. 😅 Maybe I can count how many actually take/survive come spring, or circle them in a photo.
I already have some comfrey and sunchokes that I can divide. I will need to order the grains and might choose a clover that grows as an annual in my climate... I also have lots of legumes I'm saving seed from, so I might see if it's possible to meet the requirements from those alone.

I started this beastly thing and realized that I may have to do the bulk of the planting portion in the spring

Been in the same boat many times. Last fall I experimented with adding a large amount of biochar to one of my berms that I was building. The ratio was somewhere around 15% of the native soil/compost mixture. I did not have the time to inoculate the biochar and realized that the berm wouldn't be good to go for quite some time. I watered it heavy and cover cropped it the next year (this year). It took until about mid-summer before it was ready. I was advised by many people NOT to use so much biochar but I did it anyways because why not? The berm turned out great thus far.

Good job on your project. Did you use mostly dead wood?  

I'm not experienced in Paul/Sepp style hugels as both my soil depth and my wood source is small so I make mini hugel, so I'm really impressed with your efforts so far and will love to see how it works out. I like the fact you've ended up with a little ditch around the hugel - I suspect that may be beneficial in collecting water to keep the interior logs moist.

(and your purple cabbages are great!)

I haven't worked with biochar myself, but I have heard about how it can briefly absorb all the good stuff/rob the soil if not first innoculated in some kind of nutrient soup, or something, first.

I used all dead wood that was handy nearby. The logs/rounds were an abandoned pine log deck. Some of it was already starting to rot, and my dad insisted his neighbor/friend/part time boss didn't want it anymore... though I did notice that some of it still looked pretty solid... 😅
The branches were from trees in my yard. Winter breakage, pruning, etc. Already all sitting nearby.

I suspect that my larger quantity of big, mostly solid chunks of wood will initially make it take longer to break down and be drier at first, but then improve the hugelkultur effects in subsequent years. Fortunately strawberries seem to be *pretty* forgiving/resilient, though they might be challenged... I was more than happy to put some of the strawberry plants into the bed with the cabbages and a lot more mulch, just in case.
And thank you for the cabbage compliment!

That's a tough combo with the lack of both dirt and wood. What kind of climate are you up against?

Oh, I almost forgot--I did have some speculative hope that the ditch may act in that way, also, but I mostly want it to prevent the invasion of quack grass... it was also contributing to the dirt needed to make this thing without having to move it as far. The approach Paul recommends actually involved a deeper trench for people digging by hand, especially, but the rocks made that more difficult.

It occurred to me that you could probably build your mini hugels slowly over the years by adding more branches/small wood and dirt/compost, a little each year, to maximize on the benefits of what resources you have available. Though then I suppose you wouldn't want to plant any perennials thay couldn't either be buried or dug up/moved.

I haven't worked with biochar myself, but I have heard about how it can briefly absorb all the good stuff/rob the soil if not first innoculated in some kind of nutrient soup, or something, first.

Indeed. I figured that watering extra before the freeze and adding a bunch of compost, then cover cropping early in the year would allow it to inoculate itself. It seemed to work. It's definitely not a good idea to add un-inoculated biochar to a berm if you're looking to plant right away. We have a surplus of biochar at one of the farms I volunteer at because we make mass quantities every winter. Sometimes I go a little nuts with it.

Alicia Reed wrote:That's a tough combo with the lack of both dirt and wood. What kind of climate are you up against?

My climate is very mild and moist - rain anytime of year including summer, slightly less in spring. We never get very warm (20 celsius is 'hot' for us} and never very cold (-5 celsius would be a hard frost). Because of that big hugels wouldn't really be that beneficial I think. I make mini hugel mainly for drainage . The wood interior acting as a little buffer if we get a drier spell. I do wonder too whether the wood in a big hugel would just sit there and not rot with me - we are so close to acid bogs which preserve organic stuff rather than rot it!
The other advantage of the mini hugel is that I can heap up the soil from paths and add them to my raised beds and make even more soil depth.

It really is 'horses for courses' and why permaculture tools need not be applied in the same way everywhere - some areas need shade, some ares need sun, some areas battle wind, others battle hard frost.....hugels I understand are great if you have drier summers...it just goes to show; be careful what you wish for too - and make the most of what you have.