Cynthia Durham

Besides the fact that I have a tremendous amount of old/rotting wood that needs to be dealt we also live on the side of a hill. We actually bought part of the bottom land of Possum Hollow. I plan to do my growing as much as possible near where we live in order to not supplement the deer's diet too much. I know some people that put in a lovely organic garden earlier this year and ended up selling the corn stalks as that was all that was left after the deer had their way with it.

I have been using logs for years to terrace with. I shall have to do some heavy chainsaw wielding this winter and then hope to march my beds up the hillside, anchoring them at the bottom with stone work. I think God planted stone seeds here at one time, because I have such a wonderful crop of them. Hopefully we will have some things ready to go in the early spring so I can get some mangels and sugar beets off to a good start. I hope to not have to mess with hay by having plenty of old fashion hay substitutes ready next fall.

Thanks for the kind words and not trampling my ideas into the dirt.

That was what I thought. I also think that since I'm in my old age, this garden reworking will involve much more machinery than it takes to be considered green. Ah, well, a great many green things are for young people only, and my days of digging double beds are long behind me.

Thanks for the input. I promise to go fourth and Hugelkutur.

Well, I've grown herbs for years and years. I've never had any die from too much water. Heavy clay soil, yes. Too much water, no. In fact, I can't think of any North American herb that might croak from too much water. That means nothing. My experience is mostly with Eastern United States and European herbs, so if there is anything that really needs the desert they might have trouble here.

I appreciate your additional information. I'm very new to the Hugelkultur idea, but we have lots and lots of dead wood lying about. My question is from what I've seen you either dig a pit and put in the logs, sticks etc., or pile it on the ground and put dirt, etc. on top. Have I got the essence of the idea? I going to be revamping my garden (in heavy clay soil) come spring and I'm looking at various methods, with an eye to being as self sufficient as possible. Thanks in advance.

I saw this picture from 3dfirstaid visual architecture. It made me think of what you are talking about. (https://www.facebook.com/3dfirstaid/videos--they didn't have a website listed) The wideness of the path to the upper floor of the barn is what struck me. If you were to make the area where you are going to plant much wider and made your outer "edging" logs shorter you would come up with a "fatter" spiral, which I believe would work very well. Also, I would like to know what herbs were killed with too much water. I've never had that problem. Thanks, Cindy

I had a ton of volunteer plants come up from last year's plants, and was especially proud of my cherry tomatoes. They are still producing, and I am covering them up tomorrow for a couple of low temp nights, after which time I'll be able to uncover them again. I hope to keep them in a greenhouse that we are going over them. (We're getting the bamboo this weekend.) Wish us luck!

Here is a reasonable facsimile of the volunteer plants I grew this summer. I believe it was a cross between a Climbing Trip-L-Crop and a yellow Pear tomato. I was quite surprised to end up with orange tomatoes! They tasted OK, and I'm saving seed to see what happens next year!