Hugelkulture

I"ve been reading up on this method, and it seems for those of us with enough space, it would be a great addition to SFG. Especially for squash and melons. I just got rid of a large brush pile by cutting it up in 5' lengths and putting it out for bulk pickup. I wish I had read about this method before now. Will start accumulating brush and see if I can get a 4x8 bed going for next spring. I just love experimenting! Check out this site, but there's plenty of other info on the web:
http://hubpages.com/hub/Hugelkultur-Using-Woody-Waste-in-Composting

NOTE: This thread is located in the "Non-SFG Gardening discussion" forum.

Interesting. I will have to look into this a bit more. Thanks for the heads up.

I did a combo Hugelkultur/SFG thing.

I've been doing SFG since there was only one book. I became partially disabled a while back and found it difficult to garden.

My goal was to build a bed of two cinder blocks height, so I could sit on the cinder blocks and garden, neither having to stand nor bend too much.

I really didn't want a plywood box built on cinder blocks. I want soil in my container attached to the ground at the bottom so worms move in. Plus... a plywood box on cinder blocks was just too expensive to do a serious garden; growing salads is not enough for me.

However, whether Mel's mix, or another mix, it was going to cost too much to fill with soil to that depth. And being disabled, I wasn't going to be digging up gobs of soil from the yard to "stretch" it either.

So when I ran across the Hugelkultur idea, I was all over it. What we did... we filled the bottom of the bed with branches, logs, etc. from our yard, basically just saving up the stuff we usually burn until we had a good layer on the bottom. Then we put a layer of straw to level it off so it was a bit easier to work with. Finally, we filled the top 6" with Mel's mix.

I have a "seat" which is just a board with some foam rubber attached. I sit that down wherever I'm gardening and can reach to both my left and right relatively easily.

We built our bed 4' by 24'. One 24' row is devoted to vertical gardening - I can stand long enough to wrap stems or harvest, so that works for me. But I therefore have to reach into the garden 3' from one side, which is difficult down the middle. If doing it again, I would make it 3' by 24' to be easier to use.

On the other hand, it's also not big enough to grow everything I want. I have to forego strawberries, winter squash, most summer squash, most melon, multiplier onions, garlic and shallots among other things. So... we may build a second one this fall; I'm saving up wood.

great information thanks

thanks for that article, I really did not do well with my potatoes last year and I am on the edge of a forest, so lots of raw material.

In the past when my raised beds were TOO high, and I did not have enough mix to fill them, I would fill the bottom of the raised bed with old logs and sticks, just as a space filler to make the garden mix soil go further.

Welcome, jpatti!
Glad you could join us.
I'm intrigued by Hugelkultur, too. Your adaptations for your health are wonderful. I hope you'll tell us more about your beds soon.
Jane

We had a tree growing into the fence about 6 years back. Hurricane Katrina took care of the tree issue...and the fence. After cutting everything back to the stump, we built another fence and all this wood, more or less, rotted in the back yard over the next 5 years. The chunks of wood(there are no discernible logs or branches anymore) do hold moisture rather well, even when exposed to the sun. It's amazing how many weeds have grown through the chunks of wood too.

I removed all the chunks of wood from the areas that I have planted because I didn't want to have all that carbon sucking nitrogen from the soil for decomposition. Maybe I should have just left them in.

Funnily enough, I received an email from compost junkies the other day and they mentioned Hugelkultur.