Claude Flener

Kelly Green wrote:
I do have a question on pronunciation.
At a conference in my town last weekend I was talking to a guy who does permaculture design. I mentioned my hugelbeets and pronounced it 'hoogle'. He told me it is pronounced 'hagle' with a long a sound.

Can someone please tell me the proper pronunciation of hugelbeet or huglekultur or huglebed? This bothers me more than it should, but I would like to know.

Maybe I can help you out, I speak fluent German. Hugelkultur or hugelculture is derived from the German word Hügelkultur (Hügel = hill / mound and Kultur = culture). If you pronounce the following in English, it should sound relatively close to the original word: "hew-gal-cool-toor" "or hewglecooltoor". Beet = gardenbed and is pronounced like bet with a stretched out "e" sound in bet or bed, not like an "ee" sound, as in seed, for instance.

Short of of a "hewgle", "hoogle" is definitely closer than "hagle-"

Hope that helps : )

Hi,
I just wrote a detailed blogpost on building my first hugelbeds: http://www.nordicminifarm.com/2013/08/building-hugelkultur-raised-beds/.
They were actually the very first project I completed on the field I bought next to our house, which I'm slowly turning from cropland into a permaculture system. The build was interesting and backbreaking, without earth moving equipment.
In one of the more recent podcasts, Paul mentioned that Sepp (or was it Josef?) pointed out that there was too much wood and too little earth in the illustrations of hugelbeds on richsoil.com. He said it takes more earth, even at the first stage. I only got that info after I had built mine, but I'll definitely keep that in mind when I build more of these :)


Cheers,
-Claude