Where are they now? hugelkultur updates?

So is it better to throw soil on the wood, or manure? I would imagine fresh manure would complement the carbon in the wood and the wood would keep the manure from compacting and becoming anaerobic.

I did a mini hugelkultur with a water harvesting french drain by my apartment. I first only did the hugelkulturs (2 years ago) and found that because of the roof overhang and the stairs of my apartment were preventing it from collecting water and had to manually water it ever three weeks minimum. It grew spectacularly either way. But because I wanted to be able to leave this garden so that it is self sufficient and was a long term lazy gardener I put in the water harvesting french drain this past spring, and I only had to water it once because we had a long dry spell. Slugs ended up loving what I grew last year - which were all annuals any way, so I took the next step of putting in perennials - haskap, current, goji, beebalm, etc. We'll see how well they've established themselves come spring. I've put together a photo essay on the water harvesting french drain, along with the animated gif on how well it did last year here - http://www.patheos.com/blogs/pathsthroughtheforests/2015/05/11/saegoah-pursuits-gardening-with-rainwater-harvesting-earthworks-a-photo-essay/

Cassie,

Hugelkultur picture for you!

foodproduction101.com/pictures

I've had pretty dismal luck with my huglekultures. I'm guessing I didn't put enough nitrogen generating stuff in to make up for all the nitrogen being sucked out of the soil
by the wood rotting. Small sickly plants when they do come up.

I'm sure it's all my fault, so not questioning the technique.

2015 update: 2nd year (constructed in fall of 2013)

see link below to follow from the construction up till now.
https://permies.com/t/29919/hugelkultur/large-Hugelkultur-Work-Progress

here's some recent photos:
Note: I didn't give it much attention this year due to serious issues that consumed my time!

I am interested to see more photos of Hugelkultur beds (1st and later years).
Does someone here has experience with Hugelkultur in a (sub)tropical climate? F.e. in combination with swales?

Here's a photo of my miniature Hugelkulture, the first is there for a year now, the other is new. They are built on top of the pavement ... I think that's an interesting experiment. There are good reasons to do it that way: when I leave this rented place, the garden can be returned to what it was before, and the soil (of the Hugel-beds) can be used in another permaculture project (like the community garden of Permacultuur Meppel).  

This thread is a great idea. Does anyone have any further updates on their hugels? Or on anyone else's for that matter...

just came back from three weeks at Curaçao ... saw spring sprang here in the Netherlands; my Hugels are getting green of new seedlings (probably radishes, they self-seeded)

In this video I made in early summer you can see my two Hugelbeds. I must admit there are not much vegetables growing in there, most 'living mulch'. I'll do my best to plant more edibles there next year.
https://youtu.be/1dwCK1Tkr1U  

First year for mine has been good n bad. The small hugel beds I made did not deal with the drought well but I'm not too worried about it for the long run. More heavily mulched now and I will only be planting perennial plants along it.

My large hugel bed did great but got hit hard by deer. It is now fully fenced and I'm going to be adding a bunch of shrubs some small trees (on the edge of the hugel, not on it) and more lupins this winter n spring. I will also be adding some more mulch in a few spots. Even despite the deer the bed did good and I'm excited for next year.

This fall and winter I'm also building a brand new 100ish foot long hugel bed that will extend my existing large hugel that I talked about above. I will be planting it heavily with shrubs, small trees on the north edge and a fair bit of lupins. Taking some lessons learned from my first large bed - I modified my planting list and I will be fencing it to keep deer out from the very start.

Next summer I will post some pics of my first hugel beds (small and large ones) to compare with the first year pics. I will also post some pics of my new first year hugel bed.

Depending on time I may also be making some hugel garden beds which will be my first vegetable focused hugel beds. My other hugel beds are all perennial focused with mostly shrubs and small trees.

I must be the worst huglekulturer on earth.  Nothing will grow on the three I started about 4 years ago.

I've tried to stick to the permaculture philosophy of avoiding bringing stuff in from outside, and only using what's on my land.
So that means no manure or fertilizer.  I pile leaves and grass clippings on them every year (green manure).  They only get water from rain as they are too far
from the house to run a hose.
In the last four years or so I've planted soy beans, pinto beans, collard greens, squash, flowers, herbs,etc. on them and anything I plant just
barely grows or produces.

Clearly they are too dry and devoid of nutrients.  I'm thinking about breaking my rules next year and buying bags of manure in hopes of kick starting them somewhat.
I did dig a small pond near the mounds this year so next year I will have an irrigation source to water things.  Maybe that will help.

Cris Bessette wrote:I must be the worst huglekulturer on earth.  Nothing will grow on the three I started about 4 years ago.  

What type of wood did you start with and what are you mulching with?  Could there be something in there with negative allelopathic properties?  What's the soil like that you used on the bed?  Do plants grow well in the same soil elsewhere?  

I also have little to no access to high-nitrogen materials, so I sympathize.

I used mostly rotted logs. leaves,etc from the surrounding forest.  I also used old dried out sticks, bamboo, pine saplings I had cut.
I'm mulching with fall leaves- mostly oak, maple, poplar.  Also with green lawn clippings mulched by my mower.

The lack of nitrogen rich stuff is what led to planting soy beans and other nitrogen fixers in the past few years.  


I think I might dig down into one of them in the next few days and see what is going on in there.  

When building the beds how much soil did you add to them?

I put probably about 6-9 " (15-22cm) of dirt on top of the mounds of wood and rotted plant material.

Hi guys, can you describe the climate where you are, what type of soil you have and the conditions (dry area, wet or water logged) of the place where the hugels are?

Cris Bessette wrote:I put probably about 6-9 " (15-22cm) of dirt on top of the mounds of wood and rotted plant material.

So the soil was just added on top of the final mound of wood and plant material?

Andre Lemos wrote:Hi guys, can you describe the climate where you are, what type of soil you have and the conditions (dry area, wet or water logged) of the place where the hugels are?

All of mine are in very gravely dry areas but there is a fair bit of clay too. Each hugel is on the edge of old parking areas and a dirt road. I'm trying to create a hedge row to provide privacy and start restoring some old compacted parking areas. Most of my hugel beds run east and west with their long sides facing north and south.

Next bed will be along a dirt road but on top of an existing lawn so a bit better soil than the others.

Climate here is very wet in the fall, winter and spring averaging 50ish inches of rain but most of it in Nov, Dec, Jan and Feb. Very little to no snow during the winter and the ground does not freeze for more than a few days at a time and easy to keep it from freezing with mulch. Summers here are very dry - this year we got almost no rain from late June through mid September. Summer temps tend to be in the 80s but we do get into the 90s on and off.

I like to build my hugel beds in the fall and winter so they can sit a bit and settle before planting. I do most of my shrub and tree plantings in February.

Daron Williams wrote:

Cris Bessette wrote:I put probably about 6-9 " (15-22cm) of dirt on top of the mounds of wood and rotted plant material.

So the soil was just added on top of the final mound of wood and plant material?

As far as I remember, yes.  Maybe I should have mixed soil into the wood an other stuff?

Cris Bessette wrote: As far as I remember, yes.  Maybe I should have mixed soil into the wood an other stuff?

Well my beds are only about a year old so I'm not an expert but I think mixing soil in would help. When I made mine I tried to fill all the void spaces between the wood with soil as I built it.

For mine I put the large wood down and mixed soil and some green plant material with the wood until there was no void spaces left and I had a complete mound. Next I put smaller wood pieces on top of that and then added more soil on top of that to fill the voids between the smaller wood pieces. I then added a mulch layer on top of the final layer of soil.

My large hugel beds handled the drought fairly well and I had no rodent issues. Plus the plants got established well and grew a lot in their first year. Only thing that seemed to hold it back was the deer pressure.

I think the key is to not make a brush pile with a topping of soil but instead think of it as a earthen berm fortified by wood throughout. I think if done this way the hugel bed will stay much more moist and the plants should have a much easier time getting established since there will be more room for their roots. It should also be easier for a fungal system to grow throughout since it can use the soil to grow between the wood pieces. I have had tons of mushrooms coming up in my hugel beds.

Andre Lemos wrote:Hi guys, can you describe the climate where you are, what type of soil you have and the conditions (dry area, wet or water logged) of the place where the hugels are?

I built my Hugelbeds on top of the existing pavement. The 'soil' here is sand. It needs organic material to make something grow in it. So 'why not build 'hills' of all organic materials?', was my thought.  The climate is rainy, cloudy. I made my Hugelbeds with one long side towards the South, to be in the sun as much as possible (really sunny days are rare in this climate). The North side is more like a support wall, made of concrete tiles.

Dale Hodgins wrote:I assume that you mean urine. I pee on mine. I've also added 5 tons of coffee grounds. If the top foot has adequate nitrogen, that's probably enough. If the entire mound were infused with nitrogen, the wood would quickly decay.

I too have 4 55 gal barrels with coffee grounds.
My hugelbed has one layer of logs and 2 FEET of wood chips on top.

Will spread the grounds on and off depending on when we ever get any rain.

After a few rains, cover with MORE coffee grounds then dirt.

Fingers crossed I don't start a fire!

My Hugel update as of 4-11-2019

Last year mine was extremely HOT.

Temp about 4-6 inches below the surface in the middle and near it was a whopping 130 degrees!
Could barely get anything to grow except on the outer perimeter.

EXCEPT pig weed.

That grew so well it grew to 9 feet tall! Swarms of honeybees all over it.

It took thousands of gallons of water over the growing season last year to keep it hydrated and temps down,

This year, the temp is the same as surrounding yard ground temp.

Hoping to get things to grow like crazy this year.

I have images but this won't let me upload them directly from computer to here. Sorry folks.

I assume that if the soil temp was that hot the internal temp must have been REALLY hot. And sterilized the core in the process.

I did read elsewhere that tomato hornworm hibernates 4-6 inches down in the soil. Tilling deeply destroys them about 90%.

I am going to try replanting comfrey on my hugel this year as last year's planting got cooked and died. NOTHING would keep soil temps down for long.

Some borage and coneflowers too with my veggies.

Keeping fingers crossed this year.

Old Farmer's Alamac says we should have a bad drought this year Grrr....

Oh and my hugel shrank 35% too. It was 28" tall last year and now 19 1/2 inches this year.

Additional - some people HATE henbit (a kind of weed).
I have loads of it in me garden.
It works exactly how I need it - shade the soil till it dies off when it gets hot. By then the rest of my plants should be grown enough to shade the soil.

So, not all 'weeds' are bad.

Ordered a flat of French Marigolds. 36 plants.

Those will go into the Hugelgarden to help deter pests and any nematodes that might be in there.

I also bought some Gypsum. Hopefully no more blossom end rot

The greenhouse tried to sell me gypsum sulfate or somesuch. Had a nitrogen rating of 15.5 .  I told them I do not want ANY chemicals in it. So I got the plain kind, pelletized. Bag says 1/2 pound per plant and if I wanted to use it in a rose garden (different place) it needs 2 pounds per rose. 40 pound bag for $12 won't last long. It says 1/2 pound per tomato plant. Those tomatoes better be chanting my name when I come by!

I do wonder though about well water. Shouldn't that have the trace minerals in it along with some calcium? Too cheap to get anything tested.

I received my organic comfrey roots today (not the sterile kind). Those will go on top of the hugelgarden in the highest corners (4 roots) along with some goat poo from barn scrapings.

I discovered you can make a nice tea out of that by letting it sit in a 5 gal bucket of water for a little while, dumping the wet mix, then using rain water to pour from bucket to bucket to rinse out the buckets. The last bucket had the goat tea.

I also put one handful of plain old table sugar on the goat poo before wetting and mixing. That should jump start the decaying process and not get things hot.

Goat poo had some alfalfa dust in it and a little hay/straw and was free including delivery.

Just need nature to stop with the freezing weather now.

My goal is to overproduce in the garden. AND want basketball sized tomatoes lol.

The extras I grow will go to family, friends, and the local food pantry to feed poor people.
Not much but everything helps however little.

One concern is that the costs of this endeavor might be too high for a return on the investment.

This year I figure on about $200-ish for the whole experiment. Last year was closer to $800 or so due to all the trips to get wood chips and some regular dirt, plants, etc. And the McDonald's and root beer and Hershey bars I had to keep my kid well supplied with during the construction.

Perhaps someone could convince the web masters here to let us upload pictures directly?

The construction pictures seem pretty impressive. A LOT of hard physical work to build. 17 tons of materials and over 5 months to build. Oh and ours was 1/3rd the suggested height too when completed.

Since the soil temp is normal I might buy a couple dozen nightcrawlers and stock the garden with them.

We took a post pounder and 2" by 4' piece of PVC pipe and pounded about 60 holes in the garden mostly on the sides to let air and water in. I had to build my hugel 'neat' meaning nothing sticking out from the sides and that doesn't allow much air into it (and yet it got really HOT without the air).

Any thoughts of planting a fish per tomato plant?

American Indians planted 1 fish and 5 kernels of corn.

Wood chips are getting pretty hard to come by anymore as more and more people are using them in their gardens.

Even tree companies are being inundated with requests for wood chips.

Fresh wood chips are fine for the most part especially on pathways as it draws up nitrogen and prevents sun from reaching weed seeds.
I even use them ON the garden with no related problems.

Aged wood chips are almost impossible to find and get where I am.
If I think I have a nitrogen issue I will sprinkle used coffee grounds on them or if the problem is severe enough I will buy some blood meal.

Your thoughts?

This whole thread is welcome & useful.  It only needs more illustration. Thanks for posting, Kai.

Kai Walker wrote:
I have images but this won't let me upload them directly from computer to here. Sorry folks.

It shouldn't be impossible to upload your pics, as far as I can see. (I've done it lots, myself.) I'd suggest posting about this difficulty on the Tinkering With This Site forum.  The people who look after tech things, here on Permies, are customarily very helpful. (Hooray for them!)

It kept saying I had to list a URL for my pictures.

My Hugelgarden was moist in most places, dry in others.
So we watered the daylights out of it.

Oh and while digging a hole to plant a comfrey root, we discovered a hollow chamber about a foot down. No wonder it was like walking on a sponge lol.

Still planting things. LOADS to plant in a few weeks yet.

"Acetylsalicylic acid is aspirin"
It was originally discovered from the bark of the Willow tree. American Indians used it when needed.
It was accidentally discovered chemically too.

Alfalfa contains a natural plant hormone called Gibberellic Acid (spelling?).

It causes cell elongation in many plants thus that is one way to get long stem roses.

Just a tidbit...


Organic Rose food:
Cotton seed meal, alfalfa, epsom salts.

Kai, there are several ways to attach pictures. Try this ...

Mike Barkley wrote:Kai, there are several ways to attach pictures. Try this ...

OK trying 3 of them now.
I have a boatload of them so to speak lol

Middle pic was our Hugelgarden. The tall plants were 9 feet tall!

Raised bed garden, 3rd pic, is right next to the hugelgarden.

Oh and the soil temp in the hugelgarden was 130F about 6 inches down. We had BAKED POTATOES last year and they were still in the GROUND! lol

This year soil temp is normal compared to surrounding soil temps.

Now we can see what can happen the first year after construction.

I agree, it would be nice with more visual help on projects. Sometimes people just don't do it or forget and not everyone is some kind of YouTube "star". I'm not meaning this to sound b!/(hy but just making a point.

 My friend uses a very sort of lax way to start new beds and build more on the older ones. I helped build the first one. She just starts new ones by laying branches and logs down as they are available after a storm or whatever. Yard waste. We also had the benefit of as much straw/goat/rabbit/alpaca manure as we could use when they get to that point. Yes she has to patch holes and stuff that have caved in or left open spots every year. After the chickens found them she started using hay netting to cut down on their damage. She has sort of gotten away from as much gardening because she is so busy with animals so it is someone's and sometimes my job to help along. She gets some volunteers since she really is running an educational farm.

   They likely will need water and a nitrogen source to get started the first real growing year. Ours did well with cucumbers and summer squash the first year. It was so nice to have something to neel on or lean into to pick cucs. It was an easy daily project to do and get the right sized ones for canning.There are a ton of grasses growing in it because of the manure. I see that as a benefit as it is real easy to pull or chop and drop them before they turn back to seed.

  The beds are dispersed among the orchard making things work real nice for the trees too. Now there is comfrey all around which surely helps. Last year she actually had her Chicago figs grow large and fruit out, northern mi. The fall crop got wasted, the larger crop, because of timing. The micro climate helped I would guess, and the nutrients, but we need to work on a way to get the big harvest. Maybe a wrap of some kind.

 I'm already hooked on hugel and plan on doing as much as i can this year. I've had health issues the last couple of years to make up for. Some will be built on top of ground probably if it's a wetter area and the larger log base will get buried in the drier sandier areas of the yard. The whole front yard, about 1/3 of an acre will eventually be a food forest or more accurately an orchard along with bushes and shrubs and strawberries ect. My yard if different than my friends place. We have ducks that can help with any slugs and potato bugs or Japanese beetles ect. I'll have more gardens and some animals  (free range ducks, sometimes geese and chicken tractors for me) and she has tons of animals so her garden has been neglected.  I'm planning on working at her place too and refresh the gardens in trade for wood or manure or whatever other materials I can find there. Lots of perennial plants with seed crops scattered here and there.

 I would definitely fill in holes in the hugels with extra materials as needed. Water the first year. Add lots of nitrogen the first year. It will eventually be less and less work. Even very small hugels or beds based on this would help the smallest yard gardener or flower patches very well. Just scale up or down. I'm not a pro with these but have been landscaper and tree trimmer type work most of my life.  My whole reason is good food for us and family and as much of my animal food as I can possibly manage.

 

chris glazier wrote: I agree, it would be nice with more visual help on projects. Sometimes people just don't do it or forget and not everyone is some kind of YouTube "star". I'm not meaning this to sound b!/(hy but just making a point.

 My friend uses a very sort of lax way to start new beds and build more on the older ones. I helped build the first one. She just starts new ones by laying branches and logs down as they are available after a storm or whatever. Yard waste. We also had the benefit of as much straw/goat/rabbit/alpaca manure as we could use when they get to that point. Yes she has to patch holes and stuff that have caved in or left open spots every year. After the chickens found them she started using hay netting to cut down on their damage. She has sort of gotten away from as much gardening because she is so busy with animals so it is someone's and sometimes my job to help along. She gets some volunteers since she really is running an educational farm.

   They likely will need water and a nitrogen source to get started the first real growing year. Ours did well with cucumbers and summer squash the first year. It was so nice to have something to neel on or lean into to pick cucs. It was an easy daily project to do and get the right sized ones for canning.There are a ton of grasses growing in it because of the manure. I see that as a benefit as it is real easy to pull or chop and drop them before they turn back to seed.

  The beds are dispersed among the orchard making things work real nice for the trees too. Now there is comfrey all around which surely helps. Last year she actually had her Chicago figs grow large and fruit out, northern mi. The fall crop got wasted, the larger crop, because of timing. The micro climate helped I would guess, and the nutrients, but we need to work on a way to get the big harvest. Maybe a wrap of some kind.

 I'm already hooked on hugel and plan on doing as much as i can this year. I've had health issues the last couple of years to make up for. Some will be built on top of ground probably if it's a wetter area and the larger log base will get buried in the drier sandier areas of the yard. The whole front yard, about 1/3 of an acre will eventually be a food forest or more accurately an orchard along with bushes and shrubs and strawberries ect. My yard if different than my friends place. We have ducks that can help with any slugs and potato bugs or Japanese beetles ect. I'll have more gardens and some animals  (free range ducks, sometimes geese and chicken tractors for me) and she has tons of animals so her garden has been neglected.  I'm planning on working at her place too and refresh the gardens in trade for wood or manure or whatever other materials I can find there. Lots of perennial plants with seed crops scattered here and there.

 I would definitely fill in holes in the hugels with extra materials as needed. Water the first year. Add lots of nitrogen the first year. It will eventually be less and less work. Even very small hugels or beds based on this would help the smallest yard gardener or flower patches very well. Just scale up or down. I'm not a pro with these but have been landscaper and tree trimmer type work most of my life.  My whole reason is good food for us and family and as much of my animal food as I can possibly manage.

 

About nitrogen - hit up Starbuck's and see if they have some coffee grounds they give away.
Usually it is first come first serve.

That is what I did for more than 1/2 year. Gas stations too that sold coffee (usually came in packets but that works too).

We used nearly 4 tons of the stuff. Every time I got the grounds I got between 100 and 350 pounds of them. Hit about 6 Starbuck's in one day too.

Of course that it the main cause my hugel got so hot for nearly a year.

We also added in leaves, double mowed to fluff them better.

If a hugel is on the ground and no pit it is actually a hugelbeet.
Ours had about 4-6 inch pit as the hard pan was so hard I would need a permit to use dynamite lol
It really was THAT hard.

So we rototilled as deep as the tiller would till.

1st layer rotted logs of various sizes,
Then coffee grounds then leaves then coffee grounds, then sheep poo and coffee grounds then goat poo then coffee grounds or something like that.

Topped it off with 4-6 inches of dirt from yard waste and dirt we dug out.

Still had to water like crazy to keep heat down and the thing hydrated.

This year had to recharge the wood in the hugel because of lack of rain (used well water).
And we still lightly water the top for the seedlings. Can't use wood chips there because seedlings can't push through it.
So the sun beats down on it and dries the surface.

I will have lots of pics this year too.

edit: fix a typo

Plant Abundance has lots of videos over a couple pf years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFZ70XFhFQU&list=PLQSfuNd9n8KzKY-kLuU081XNxiQnfnJLb

so does edible acres, he's my fav https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaDG7hAhvjQ&list=PLihFHKqj6JeoSu8x1Iov87HBVoLejlX64

FoodsGood Farm wrote:Plant Abundance has lots of videos over a couple pf years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFZ70XFhFQU&list=PLQSfuNd9n8KzKY-kLuU081XNxiQnfnJLb

so does edible acres, he's my fav https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaDG7hAhvjQ&list=PLihFHKqj6JeoSu8x1Iov87HBVoLejlX64

None of that matters if we don't gent enough rain when needed (sigh).

We might get some Thursday.

The well we used almost ran dry too.

Only 1 rain tank left with 250 gal of water in it.

My 1st year Hugel was nearly a diaster. I could not give it enough water! Only things that flourished were the dang weeds lol
Soil temps were at least 130F about 4-6 inches down.
Hard to say just how hot the core was 2 feet down.
Most of my hugel was made of wood chips at the base then 4 tons of used coffee grounds on top of that with some double mowed leaves and barn scrapings.

This year temps are about the same as the surrounding soil.
Things are beginning to grow normally.
Problem right now is far too much rain.
Soil is not wanting to dry out.
Potatoes are 2 feet high and beginning to flower. Other things beginning to grow fairly well but I won't see just how well until things dry out for a week.
But we are supposed to have rain nearly every day this week.

About the poster that wanted empirical evidence (aka yields, pH, etc - who in the world conducts high school experiments where you have to chart all that stuff?
People go by how well things are growing vs what they had the year before and how much water and such they have to use.

(holds thumb up and thinks to self - yep that's better than last time).

I will provide pix when I can get someplace that has good and free wifi for me to upload them.

Most will be last year's pix.

Patience grasshopper....

I am new to the forum but am entering 4th year of hugelkutur gardening. I have 8 beds, the biggest is 100' long, over 12' across. They only get better with each year. But I do have livestock that contribute used bedding and manure to the hugels every year. Last year I only watered 3 times at the end of the summer to get a 10th picking from my green beans. My pumpkins, squash and cabbages do not get irrigated at all.

LOL Looks like someone wrapped a basketball with banana tree leaves and called it a head of lettuce!

Dang wish mine would produce like that.
I have things starting to die already.

Might be because of the 12 inches of rain we got in the past 2 weeks though.
Dunno....

I see they had a mini excavator to use. We had a household small rototiller and 2 shovels to do ours.
And unbreakable hardpan 4-6 inches down too.