video on the making of a hugelkultur

Its a french movie but I think it's worth watching even if you don't speak french. Philip studied with Masanobu Fukuoka. EDIT: I just noticed the english subtitles...


From 4:00 to 8:00 is the gathering of the good stuff,
from 8:00 to 14:00, the making of the bed, he says not to leave too much oxygen in the bed, fill the gaps with shredded wood and leaves, alternate with grass and woody debris, before the final layer, a layer of hopefully around 20cm of the original soil from digging the hole, then final layer is more shredded wood, leaves and fir needles (fir needles?) You can plant right away or wait.

From 15 minutes to 17, how to seed your crop in the bed
at 17 minutes how to transplant into it.

Miguel DaStein : Thanks for sharing this ! Just two comments to add -

It is my understanding that Here in the U. S. and Canada All the Inks used are for years now Soy based and non toxic - to promote recycling - and are safe ?!

Second In the video 'Philip' Mentions Pine and Fir needles several times, but what was actually shown was Almost all the humus level found under the pine trees
actually below the matts of pine needles ! This may have contained considerable needles in what he was spreading, but must of the material being spread
appeared to have been worked on by the Fungi layer

In many places in Europe there is a tradition of if it was on a healthy tree it belonged to the Crown/Country, the things on the ground and some of the understory
was available to 'the peasants'

Here in the states you may file yourself arrested for stealing material from the forrest floor in ''Public lands"

For the good of the Crafts ! Big AL

I d have to do more research, for now I chose not to use paper or cardboard regardless of the inks. They have to put that paper through all kinds of chemical process to make it the paper we like to write on nowadays.

There is a special mycorrhizae that associate with pine needles, maybe Philip is really after the mycorrhizae and not the pine needles per say. Almost everything he uses in his bed is already decomposed quite a bit and I think it's an awesome way to speed up the process, and also the bed is ready to absorb water like a sponge, as soon as you are done making it, you can plant it.

Crown land is being logged like crazy around here... and they waste so much of the wood, literally waste it, they burn it. I did slash burning in the Fall the last couple of years, I tried talking to my boss about different ways they could manage the surplus (I dont like to call it waste anymore) but they are not really interested in new ideas. Here are some of the ideas I proposed to them @35minutes and @40minutes in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRE2EEdI4x0&list=UUsakAmIBPWSKOQrnuOXIsjA&index=10 Anyway, long story short, a lot of wood is being wasted and I will never hesitate to go on crown land to harvest some rotten wood for my garden.