Mike Holmes

Awesome! Thanks, I'll be trying it again soon.

Hmm. I'm not sure what it was because I used everything as per the recipe. The peanut butter was homemade with just the nuts, I did have a hard time getting it to mix with the stringy dough though. I'll have to wait and see your technique. thanks for the recipe and the extra help..

Yes I used vital wheat gluten..

I had to try when I saw this recipe. It was delicious, but mine came out like bread. When I chopped it up it looked more like cruitons than seitan. Any idea what went wrong?..

Thanks for the replies. I'll try the morels..

I have a few bags of fir bark chips that were originally for bedding in a rescued python enclosure. The python has been adopted and now I'm wondering if I can use these chips to grow mushrooms. If so, what types of mushrooms would do best in fir bark chips?..

What are some options for making beds steeper and having a thicker layer of soil over the wood without adding too much width?..

If I use freshly cut wood, how long would it take to get the characteristic sponge effect of a proper Hugelkultur bed?..

What types of plants are good for controlling erosion in a newly built bed?..

Is there such a thing as too much wood in a Hugel bed?..

Is it necessary, or does it help to make sure there are no air pockets in the soil?..

Does the position of the wood make any differences in how well the bed will do?..

This is the first Hugelkultur bed since I moved out on my new farm. I've built others but didn't take as many pictures of the building process. The wind can get crazy out here, so I chose to wet the outer layer of soil and spread it on. Spreading the wet soil on also helped with making the bed steeper, the only drawback being that when it dried it was hard and resembled a desert. The plants didn't seem to mind after being planted in soft soil pockets, and then when the bed was mulched with straw the soil softened up again. The yield was great and I'm sure the bed will produce even better in the years to come..

Thanks Joe Kilcoyne for the reassurance, it's nice to hear from others that are doing similar things.

Meryt Helmer wrote:oh dear no! I was not thinking that at all! I was just thinking of what I remembered from my hard core vegan days and I was never like that at all. I just have serious ptsd from stuff related to animals (and plenty of other stuff) in my childhood and basically had to be vegan for a long time. now I go back and fourth and my own garden is not vegan as far as manure goes. I have always liked what farm sanctuary does though and I was thinking that people who are very hard core vegan would want to buy what you are selling.

Mike Holmes wrote:Lol ya, I wouldn't say any of that either. It seems you have me confused with someone that would be handing out slaughterhouse photos at the farmers market or something.. Lol.. Not my mission, let me know what it was that I said that gave you that impression.. Though there is no doubt that animal ag and the chems are problems on a large scale, I hope people will be able to see there are other ways on their own.. Some people are attracted to the idea because a lot of people think animals and fertilizers are absolutely essential to any farm and some like to hear that they could do some of the techniques in their own backyard right now..

Sorry, I was replying to a previous post with that comment. My reply to your post was after the one you quoted. lol, my bad..