How to prepare Hugelkultur for spring.

Merry Christmas folks! How's everyone's holiday? Blake has worked on his Hugelkultur bed today at his community farm making sure there are no open spaces left for rodents to go in or out by laying down layers of mulch. Could we use repellents (natural ones) to stop rodents from entering in the mound beds?
Also, how we keep our beds safe from being frozen to keep our soil enriched and fertile? I wanna keep things intact into the spring.
Are there ways to maintain a Hugelkultur bed during the winter when the weather gets milder? Please shoot back if you need me. Happy 2026!

The gophers seem to like nesting down deep in my beds in the gaps between the wood. I don't notice that they otherwise cause problems so I just leave them be.

Good evening folks! How do we prevent rodents from entering into our Hugelkultur this winter? Are there any non toxic ways to combat critters from sheltering in our beds? Take care.

Blake Lenoir wrote:Could we use repellents (natural ones) to stop rodents from entering in the mound beds?

I'd make stacks of rocks around the berms to attract snakes.

Blake Lenoir wrote:Also, how we keep our beds safe from being frozen to keep our soil enriched and fertile?

Not sure where you live but I'm in Colorado and it gets down to -15F sometimes. I usually add a good 3" or so layer of mulch, humus or leaves before the freeze, or cover crop them. Most of my berms are roughly 3' deep and 3' high, so about 6' total to the bottom of the trench to the very top. It will freeze but the core should be good. I've never ran into issues during the winter with my hugel berms. I also have poly pipe running down to the bottom of the trench and usually dump water into them once a year before the deep freeze just to make sure they are moist but that's not really necessary.

I'd also suggest adding spent mushroom spawn blocks if you can source them from a vendor. They often toss them out for free when they are done with them and they make a great soil amendment or can work as mulch. They still will contain mycelium and promote fungal growth.

I personally would welcome anything that wants to thrive in the hugel. Plant extra stuff? Predators will come.

It happens that expanding a hugelkultur is my project for today. But mine are not huge mounds; I just dig a foot deep, maybe a little more, throw in half rotted logs, then add in a mix of the topsoil, sand, peat moss, manure, rotted leaves, and smaller branches and cover with soil. First I tried this with elderberries in orchard, and they thrived until deer ate them to the ground. But when I moved my blueberries to a new location, I tried putting them on a hugelkultur bed, WITHOUT concrete blocks at the base of their bed, and they've done much better. I don't worry about either rodents or freezing. I do mulch them heavily with leaves every fall. Now I've decided I need to expand my blueberries, since that's one fruit my husband will eat, and likely good for my macular degeneration, so I'm digging a new hugelkulture. For blueberries a lot of the additional matter needs to be peat moss as that's the only thing I know that's sufficiently acidic.