I recently completed my first hugel experiment. It's about 8 feet wide at the base, about 30 feet long, and about 4.5 feet high. I am working with a bit of an advantage because I own excavation equipment and I have an arborist dumping waste wood (logs and woodchips) at my property, so I have no excuses holding me back from doing lots of hugel experiments. I kept this first one pretty simple so that I could get the hang of it before moving on to more advanced stuff.
I simply dug a pit about 8 feet wide, 20 inches deep, and 30 feet long. I put mostly branches in the bottom, then added whole logs and
firewood rounds on top. I put in material that was already significantly rotted. Then I put on several cubic yards of horse manure (thanks to my neighbor's supply of it). Then a layer of woodchips to mix with the manure. Then I took the sod I had removed in the excavation and turned it upside down and draped it over the pile. Then I put the soil that I removed from the pit on top of the sod. I then finished it all off with another layer of woodchips. I did this entire thing in one day.
About a week after construction, we planted cantaloupe starts and squash starts on it. So far, the cantaloupe are struggling and the squash seem like they are doubling in size every day. I'm on the edge of my seat to see how everything works with this over time. We're keeping our expectations low for this first season, but I'm optimistic that it's going to produce wonderfully in subsequent years.
Note: This mound runs north/south, so the growing surfaces are mostly on the east and west. I wouldn't normally orient a bed this way, but we did so on this one because it's also serving the function of being an important landscape break at the end of our
yard. We knew we needed to do something in that spot anyway, so I figured why not make it a hugel bed. My
plans for future hugel beds will involve orienting them in an east/west fashion so as to optimize the southern exposure of our property.
I welcome any input, feedback, suggestions, etc. I'm still learning about this stuff. It's super fun!
P.S. I'm not sure if this is the best place to post this, but I thought it would be fun to add a case study to the "first hugel"
thread. Let me know if I should post this somewhere else instead.