A Flan

Thanks for the gift Ashley. Reminds me of an ewok.

In Missoula! What a drive. A little longer than expected. Now only be a few minutes to the lab.

Heading from Billings now. Should be in Missoula in 4 hours or so.

Heading out now, see you guys when I see ya!

I outta be heading up this Wednesday or Thursday from Texas. Getting all my things together now and getting my truck ready for the long haul. Ill reply quick when I leave here. Cheers

Tyler Ludens wrote:I've had zero success with low hugelkultur in my part of Central Texas.  They dried out completely.  I've had better success with buried wood beds.  https://permies.com/t/52077/Buried-Wood-Beds

For your mounds, I would put a lot of mulch on and do as wayne suggests, planting in pockets of improved soil.

Mine have gotten pretty dry now even in this wet summer were having. I was recently thinking about soaking the wood underneath with lots of water to simulate a rain, that could help. Im not so sure right now, everything was fine without water until this last few weeks.

I let coco know that the monies arrived.  She will probably get you sorted tonight or tomorrow morning.



Sounds good, looking forward to it.

paul wheaton wrote:

A Flan wrote:Id still like to come up at the beginning of august, should I purchase a slot now? and id like to formally initiate any screening process that may be necessary.

Yes, let's get everything moving forward.  

I sent the payment on PayPal. Feel free to PM me when you get the chance.

A. F.

That sounds like a good idea what he does. I imagine those pockets of compost and mulch would really help to incubate more fungus and critters to help spread and improve the soil. The sand content may be a problem, but I dont know if there are things that work to dissolve sand over time or if thats a hundred year process. its a fine sand, nothing like a beach sand. it was labeled as sandy loam mix, but stuffs been growing in it fine so im pretty happy. Id plant some winter rye in september down here but ill be leaving soon, some of the fields I work on our winter rye lasted until May! its a tough grass.

Recently at my place I made a few small hugelculture mounds to see how well they would work for water retention here in central Texas. I piled up a lot of rotten oak and covered it with a pretty sandy fill I got from a landscaping supplier. Over all in size id say its about 8 cu. yards. Two winding mounds about 2 feet off the ground. After a few months in the spring I realized that I needed mulch as I was having some erosion problems and issues keeping sown seeds in the soil. To remedy this I cut a fair amount of grass and have been keeping it a few inches thick on top since. This immediately helped with being able to sow seeds and keep moisture in, a few plants that were on their last legs are looking healthy and green again! My question for more experienced growers is, how many years am I looking at to see more of a dark soil begin to form? Another one is, can I layer compost on top of this and then more grass on to that? Or would that cause suffocation problems?

Thanks!