I used to think I wanted big equipment to make huge piles of dynamic soil. Now that I know hugels better... does anybody look at hugels as purely a soil making venture?

I am not sure if trenches/paths of logs and wood chips count as hugels but I expect them to become rich soil and i harvest the soil from these trenches to use elsewhere.

My aspen forest is a soil making machine. The aspen grow pretty fast, die young, fall over, rot away , etc, etc.

I have places on my property where the soil is 5-6 feet deep. So ya I think any wood that is in contact with the soil is a good thing.

Seeing it as SOLELY a soil-making venture might narrow the scope so far as to miss much of the picture.

Disrupting the soil to use elsewhere disrupts the mycelium that made the soil great. Sets you back.

And it disrupts the habitats a hugel forms, potentially losing things like salamanders that would have helped pest control.

And if you distribute a hugel bed flat, you lose garden surface area.

A 4 foot by 10 foot garden plot has 40 square feet Of garden.
a 4x10 6 foot tall hugel mound has over 120 square feet of garden.

My use of the word venture skewed the results a little me thinks... my intention was not a venture as in capitalist production mode, but a personal quest to build soil in more than just hugel areas. Rapid deployment of beneficial soil ...

I really the get the do not disturb the colony piece, was thinking that - if a hugel can be broken down after a year to rejuvenate - use the contents to spread around...

I surely would not want to disturb salamanders... some of my favorite critters. This raises a question then - how much change in a hugel to rejuvenate it is "acceptable" before it threatens the colony?

Miles Flansburg wrote:My aspen forest is a soil making machine. The aspen grow pretty fast, die young, fall over, rot away , etc, etc.

I have places on my property where the soil is 5-6 feet deep. So ya I think any wood that is in contact with the soil is a good thing.

I'm planning on planting some fruit and nut trees and have access to the litter beneath the trees on the property but haven't ventured into that part of the project yet. Love Aspens

William Bronson wrote: I am not sure if trenches/paths of logs and wood chips count as hugels but I expect them to become rich soil and i harvest the soil from these trenches to use elsewhere.

I saw another post asking about hugels in paths... that sounds so nice, spongy walkways... easy on the knees...