paul wheaton wrote:I wish to strongly discourage the thing where people make a trench and put the hugelkultur in the trench.
I wish to strongly encourage hugelkultur beds to be at least six feet tall. Preferentially 7 feet tall or taller.
I wish to strongly encourage hugelkultur beds to have very steep sides. 75 degrees to 80 degrees.
I wish to strongly encourage hugelkultur beds to be at least 20 feet long.
I wish to strongly encourage wood + soil + wood + soil + wood + soil + wood + soil + mulch. I see too much of wood-on-wood - and I wish to discourage that.
https://permies.com/t/96953/making-quick-foot-tall-hugelkultur
I wish to discourage the use of "nails" in hugelkultur. The stick ends up wicking water out of the hugelkultur.
I think the video is fun - but there are a lot of things in it that I wish they expressed differently.
The trench was to retain excess water thereby giving more time for wood to absorb it. Wood especially hardwood takes a long time to saturate.
Kind of works like a swale of sorts. And creates an artificially higher water table (I have hardpan and heavy clay where I live and ground water doesn't stay long).
My trench was down to the hardpan, about 4-6 inched I think. Just enough to form a kind of 'saucer' to hold water from rain runoff and allow more time for the wood to absorb water.
As I was making mine, I took 11-5 gal buckets of wood chips and filled them with water. Left them all winter. Took most all winder to fully saturate just wood chips. And that was no where near enough to use for anything significant. Just testing a theory. I did use them in the hugel though along with other material.
Why 20 feet long? Maintenance and such can be extra work.
And if you have to tear down a hugel to address a problem then 20 feet long is a bit of work. Mine though is nearly 30 feet long but that is because of the property owner not wanting a bunch of small hills all over the place (lawnmower guy would charge extra for mowing).
I have to tear out 25% of mine to remove Johnson Grass roots. We pull the tops to slow their progress but have to remove the roots by hand.
A longer hugel would require tearing down a lot more of it. Had mine been 6-8 foot lengths I could do a tear down, fix, and rebuild without disturbing adjacent portions as much if at all. I may have to tear down 1/2 of mine. Won't know till I get started. And 20 feet vs a smaller 'contained' 6-8 foot one is a LOT less work to do.
So I have to tear down additional amounts to ensure I get all the roots.
The property owner wants me to use a herbicide. Either I fix it or HE will his way.
Also if a hugel is used as a swale or
berm, 20 feet+ can be a big problem if it gives way. At least with a smaller one, most likely any stress would damaged only one of the smaller ones. Sort of like a swale relief valve in a way.
The center of my pic is an access walkway and not a growing medium in the hugelgarden. Makes it darned easy to weed, plant, and harvest that way.
My pic is also preliminary and the garden was far from being complete.
7 feet tall and most people might need a ladder to do anything on top. At least with 6 feet or less you can use a small step stool for safety reasons.
Some places have 'rules' against building mounds over a certain height.
Or anything for that matter.
It took 17 tons of material just to build my hugel 'box' at less than 1/2 height. 5 1/2 months too. Back breaking work (and a lot of mcdonald's for my kid for his help).
The 53 degree number came from the angle of the slope of the side of the Great Pyramid so as to avoid dirt sliding off the sides.
The actual pyramid measurement is about: The 51° 50' 40" angle translates into the decimal system as 51.844444° or 52 degrees. I chose 53 for convenience and a 1deg error margin.
At 70-80 degrees slope, any rain you get will run off very quickly. So would your soil unless you can grow something exceptionally quickly.
Where I am, rain is at a premium in the summer. So a gentler slope is required to slow rain runoff and allow more absorption. And less erosion.
I think they suggested 'nails' to hold the sides until you get a cover crop in place. The 'nails' are not that long as depicted in the video. That was obviously chosen to show the intended shape.
I used them the first year until I got things growing. They rotted mostly in about a year and the cover crop (clover in particular) held the soil.
My water draw was from the hot composting that was taking place not the nails.
I do wonder though. Many pics I see, people make them sloppy meaning they have sticks protruding out of the sides (I think for air?).
Here is a link describing Hugelkultur:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%BCgelkultur
"As of 2017 there are no peer-reviewed scientific studies available regarding the efficacy of the technique.[5] A few university student projects investigate Hügelkultur but have not been published in scientific journals.[5]"
That in interesting for them to state that since Hugel has been around for 100's of years.
You did not discuss the terracing from the video. Your thoughts?
Wiki states using wood chips in the hugel was not advised. I had a 2 year plan for it (owner was trying to
sell the property but later changed his mind).
The property owner did not want me to use a lot of logs (not any if he has his way). But I settled for very well rotten ones in the trench to make it last about 2 years or so.
The owner was concerned about the cost of removing it if he sold the property. Easier to remove dirt than logs.
Wiki also states that nutrients can leech out faster if wood chips are used. Mine, if they leeched, would leech into the 'saucer' and stay for use by plants.
And hopefully form the well sought after humus.
Also, my hugel is surrounded by
concrete blocks (to keep lawnmower man at bay and to reduce erosion).
I will upload construction pix for review when I get time and a decent internet.
Today we dug a spot on top. Top 2 inches were moist the rest bone dry. Have to pound in some more holes to let water in (soil apparently hydrophobic from last year). But only certain spots seem that way.
In that spot we planted 1 plant and poured in 2 gal of water.
Took about 4-5 min for the water to absorb. So far so good.
I build according to the owner's wishes and what I can get done for free (all materials were free including delivery except I had to go get all those logs and wood chips -
gasoline use).
Trench, slope, shape, and height were all for practical reasons.
If I owned the property I might have made it differently.
If I were to make one as you suggest it would take about 100 tons of materials and a year to complete.
Too much for such a short term project. Too much for two people to build by hand.
The only power equipment we used was a small home thin tined rototiller. Rest was shovel, shovel, and shovel some more. We did not even use a chainsaw (mine is broken anyway)
The design I have does work. Looks like a jungle right now.
It was about less than 1/2 as high as you recommended the first year.
WEEDS grew enormously the first year (pigweed to be precise). Owner did not like 9 foot tall or bigger weeds growing on his property and pulled them all out setting my progress back quite a bit.
This year my height decreased by 35% indicating successful decomposition.
Won't see the true results until I tear down part of it later this fall.
I would have loved to make a keyhole or letter 'E' style hugel but water issues prevented it (needed that swale to catch water running across the lawn to that part of the property and not form a mini lake that could give way and damage neighbor's property behind the garden).
My placement catches a lot of that water and allows for a relief area if too much water accumulates thereby reducing the risk of swale failure.
Posting a few pics for people to get the idea.
Can't afford to do them all right now (hotspot data limits).