Mick Smith

Several years ago I put in several traditional raised beds on top of our hard clay soil. These worked well but they didn't produce nearly as well as the woody beds I created after learning about hugulkulture. So this fall I picked up some alleve and went to work converting my raised beds to hugul beds:

http://theaveragedude.net/index.php/2016/12/25/converting-raised-beds-to-hugul-beds/

This experience  taught me the value of clay and how it can be a super valuable addition to your soil composition. Has anyone else on the forum converted their beds? It's a lot of work but the long term value will be huge!

If there is wood the termites will find it. I saw this last year when I had to relocate a HK bed to another area. When I dug everything up I noticed a ton of termites around the the decaying wood. All of my HK beds are a good 100' away from the house but we still have termite protections in place since termites can easily move. We have sentricon tubes installed around the perimeter of our house and shed and our foundation was sprayed with termidor. I don't like using chemicals, but I've seen the damage termites can do and I'm not taking any chances.

I watched Geoff Lawton's video on soil and was amazed at just how much life is actually in the soil. I also came across some information on inoculating soils to speed up the soil life formation process in new hugulkulture beds. Which inoculants have folks had the best luck with?

I bought 25lbs of Fava beans from the folks over at groworganic.com (they also have soil builder and various cover crop mixes by the pound):

http://www.groworganic.com/fava-bean-windsor-raw-lb.html

They were around $2 per pound and they have $4.99 flat rate shipping. I also purchase innoculant and the grand total was less than $50. Not too shabby. Now to figure out what to do with all these Fava beans. 25lbs is a LOT of beans.

I did this will all of my beds though I don't have any definite data to know how well this works. Here is what I added to each bed:

Top layer 10" of quality soil
Middle layer 2" - 4" of compost + vegetable scraps + greens + 10 gallons of coffee grounds
Bottom 8" - 10" of rotted wood

This summer will be the first test since these beds have been sitting idle for the past few months. Can't wait to see how my veggies do once they go into the ground!!

Thanks for the feedback. I figure I can't really go wrong here. I'm using up old rotted wood and helping my soil and plant at the same time.

We planted six blueberry bushes last fall. They are pretty well established and look to be doing pretty good. This past weekend it dawned on me that the plants may benefit from some rotted wood so I dug a trench 1' behind them, layered some leaves and pine straw on the bottom and threw a 2.5' piece of pine on top of that. I then watered that well and added a mixture of peat moss and clay to top if off. Is anyone doing something similar? I figure over time the pine will break down and add nutrients to the soil. It will also be able to absorb a small amount of water which the blueberry bushes can then tap into. Curious what others think of this approach?