Paul Schmidt

The permaculture certificate can be important if you want to get into consulting or permaculture design, but, whether or not you have this certificate, if you grow good food, then you'll have something to sell.

To get rid of the big vines, you could try cutting it and building a hot compost pile on top. I've heard this is an effective method for getting rid of comfrey, so I imagine it would work well for other plants. Naturally, this is labor intensive, so would only be practical for the very large ivy.

Mow it down and wait. The existing cover crop will continue to grow and you can mow it down again later. As it continues to grow, it will put down even deeper roots to aerate the lower layers of soil and mine for deep nutrients. If you try to establish a new cover crop without removing the old one, then you are certain to meet with failure.

Needs more soil. I've found that you need more soil than you took out to fill up a hugel bed properly. I dug a swale at the same time that I put in a hugel bed and used the extra topsoil from the swale to cover the hugel.

If you have a cat that likes to hunt, put him out where the hugelbed is at, and he'll help you with the squirrels. I assume the squirrels are nesting in the interior of the bed because there is an airpocket in there that they like to hang out in. All you can do is add more soil and wait for it to settle.

You could try applying liberal amounts of pepper wherever you see a squirrel hole. Or use Sepp Holzer's bone salve. This might make them rethink living there.

Build an A-Frame. Cost: $0 using three pieces of scrap wood, some string, and a rock. This will find any contour line very easily. You can also find constant slopes with a quick calibration.