What do you think people?  Would this work or just pure nonsense?

I'm in tropical climate in yucatan, Mexico.  Land was previously a cantina.  There is a lot of vegetation and fruit trees surrounding a large area of poured concrete that was once the dance floor.  I'd like to put raised beds here.

hey lenore,

welcome to the forums.

normal raised beds work on concrete, so i think, hügelkultur should work. could you start with one as a trial?

good luck and best wishes
tobias

Welcome!

Be sure to consider the taproots of the plants you plan to plant there.  Like ... corn has a deep taproot so your soil needs to be deep.  If you make the tall "triangle" shaped hugel beds, then corn would be on the top.

My DH [dear hubby] used some 4" deep containers for squash and watermelon which didn't do as well as usual so we thought that the soil was too shallow.  Lettuce would have been better there.

This is just given as an example as to why the taproots need to be considered.

hey lenore,

in this thread Inge is building one hügelbed on top of her pavement:

https://permies.com/t/48736/Permaculture-small-Dutch-town

I've done that ... right on concrete.  We were in a rented place and could not garden ... so, I put some agricultural cloth down, built wooden raised beds right on the concrete.  When we moved, we just took the beds down and cleaned the concrete. 

Where are you in the yucatan.  We're 40 kms' out from Merida of the Cancun highway. 

Thanks for the welcome and the responses.  I've started my hugelkulture bed using reclaimed wood and brush on the land. There are a lot of branches, palm fronds, almond tree leaves, dried straw like grass and plant cuttings.  Not much green to add.  Do have composting fruit falling from trees.

To amarynth leroux: I'm in F Carrillo Puerto on the highway from tulum to chetumal.

assuming you don't want to preserve the flat concrete, why not take a long masonry drill and drill some holes in it, plant roots go thru concrete anyway eventually but with drilled holes they will get a rapid head start and the roots will then further break the concrete up. The holes don't have to be large diameter, even a cheapish drill and bit will only take a minute to drill a hole a yard deep. Let the bit cool and rest between holes if you are doing a lot, or even better cool the hole with water.

Lenore Ogbor wrote: I'm in F Carrillo Puerto on the highway from tulum to chetumal.

Oh yeah ... we came through there just Friday last week.  Spent a few days in Chetumal.  We have another permie friend just this side of Vallodolid on the Cancun / Merida road. 

Soon there will be enough of us to have a get together.  

Just thinned out a bunch of bamboo.  Thoughts about adding that to hugelkulture.

amarynth leroux wrote:

Lenore Ogbor wrote: I'm in F Carrillo Puerto on the highway from tulum to chetumal.

Oh yeah ... we came through there just Friday last week.  Spent a few days in Chetumal.  We have another permie friend just this side of Vallodolid on the Cancun / Merida road. 

Soon there will be enough of us to have a get together.  

Yes a get together would be cool.