Westley Wu

Great thread!  To clean out the bins without getting blasted by the pressure washer “rebound”, how about using an angled head on the pressure washer?  I got a set from Amazon for $10(?).  One is shaped like an “L” another seems 30-45 degrees, and last like a hook.  Seems you could place the bins on the ground w the opening facing sideways and stand to the side or even “behind” the opening and blast away.  Or even put down some 2x4 wood or cinder blocks, place the bins upside down on the raised blocks and use the “u-turn” angled attachment to blast upwards at the inside of the bins, all of which drains down into the ground.  Hope that helps!

Thank you Mike, yes I did put 1/4" mesh at the bottom (pic), but it was the bane of my existence.  Doing the "flashing" at each corner and edge was not easy if one doesn't want to leave gaps and holes that could grow over time, esp. w the weight of logs and dirt going in.  Laying it down on the irregular slope and bare earth was a problem.  If I had to do it again, I would construct a flat floor of some sort to fasten the mesh to, but the initial idea was to allow bypass between the earth and the soil in the box for worms, moisture, etc.  Maybe a hybrid with wooden slats.

What did you mean by backing up after planting garlic too deep?

As promised, sharing photos of the completed Hugel, just in time for the rainy season.  Hoping to plant fruit trees on the slope above, but worries the gophers will kill them.  Next up is the deer fence.

“Ziplining” two cubic yards of compost down to the hugel.  It’s 80 5 gallon buckets, and would’ve been more than climbing up and down the old world trade ctr, carrying heavy buckets.  So I built this rig, had to keep the line high enough to stay above the ground all the way down, w the weight of four buckets at a time.  You can see 3 green and orange buckets down at bottom, I’m sending the fourth here.  This might come in handy for moving other objects in the future so I think I’ll keep it.  Have three wine barrels I got for rainwater storage that need to go down there.

Paul and Stephen, THANK YOU!!!  🙏🏻💜💕

Will give it a go.  Gonna layer our rotting woodchips followed by our compost mixed 50/50 w the clay soil, and finally topsoil.  Will post the results.  Thank you again.

Here are some photos of the setup, I filled it w what I described before but can change based on feedback.  Next would be the 1-2 year old mostly oak woodchips, then compost + clay soil in a 50/50 mix, followed by topsoil.

Paul, first of all thank you for all your Hugelkultur content on richsoil.com and here on permies!  I’ve been doing weeks of reading to build our garden here in Northern California.  In short I’ve spent the weekends this summer building a 25ft. long terraced / raised bed veggie garden (to defend against the multitude of rodents everywhere around us) along the contour of a pretty steep slope.  Now it’s time to fill it Hugelkultur style and I’m running into issues - can you help?

We live right in the redwood forest, which is beautiful but all the recommended wood for Hugelkultur are in scarce supply naturally for acres in each direction.  And the local firewood companies only sell Oak, Almond, Walnut, and Eucalyptus.  The same goes for the litter/branches/twigs layer - most tree company cuttings are California Pepperwood, Oak, Bay Laurel, or some sort of coniferous tree.  All of the above are highly allelopathic, which is the challenge I’m facing.

So far I’ve managed to find a few dead Maple limbs but that’s all, and logs on the forest floor that are well decomposed so I collected them thinking they’d be OK, I think most of them are Oak.  I’ve resorted to putting freshly felled Oak logs on the bottom, then the decomposing maple and oak logs.  Am wondering if that will produce fertile soil for vegetables?  or will the Oak stunt all our plant growth?  And what should I use for litter?  I have a truckload of woodchips from a local tree company that’s been decomposing for 1-2 years, it was “green” (with leaves) which they said was a mix of oak and other trees.  Nothing grows out of the pile though...but I do see strands of white fungus mycelium growing to a depth of ~6” and the twigs deep down have moisture and easily break in my hands vs. “snapping” or being sharp like fresh woodchips.  Would this be a good next layer for the Hugel bed?

Or can I use the overly abundant redwood litter?  We have a 2 year old compost pile (about a cubic yard) but the brown matter has largely been redwood litter (we were not aware of allelopathy until this summer, and besides we don’t have any other brown matter around).  Is it a good idea to add this compost on top of the wood and litter layers?  I would remediate 50/50 w the clay soil I dug up from the postholes and then use purchased topsoil.

Would greatly appreciate your expert thoughts and ideas!  Anyone else who’s on the forum, we’d also welcome your feedback!

Travis, how is your garden going?  Hopefully you’re still reading this site.  I’m in California but had the exact same thought and went through with it this summer - a terraced / raised bed garden against a pretty steep slope.  It was not an easy project, rock hard clay, hit some old concrete post fillings in the ground and had to change my design on the fly, and keeping things level and contoured is easier said than done!  Mine’s about 3ft wide (only gardening access from the lower side) and 25 ft. Long, contours to the shape of the land, about 1’ high on the high side, 2.5’ on the low side.  Material is all rough hewn Redwood, I applied pure raw linseed oil (from Earthpaints in NC) to help preserve it / and for aesthetics.

Anyway, just thought I’d ask an experienced owner of such a creation what the lessons learned have been?  And what’s worked very well according to plan?  Given the slope, I put a lot of time into drainage so that it doesn’t become a waterlogged mess.  I must say, staying 100% organic was NOT easy - drainage systems are all made from synthetics e.g. landscape cloth, retaining wall barrier material, and PVC pipe.  I ended up using gravel wrapped in burlap which isn’t as good, but won’t disintegrate and leach plastics into the soil over time.  Also, putting down the 1/4” mesh rodent barrier underneath was something I never want to do again!  The slope makes sealing off the corners and posts a geometrical nightmare, like a test in Origami design except in sharp hardware cloth.  I could’ve gotten lazy about it and left gaps, but we border open space and the gophers, moles, voles, mice, are abundant everywhere and will find a way in if there’s any way possible!  If I ever have to do it again, I’d artificially flatten the bottom instead of following the slope.

Now I’m trying to apply Hugelkultur principles to filling the garden box, so any ideas there would be much appreciated!