Creating a Hugelkultur Bed

Below are some photos of a new hugelkultur bed we are creating. The bed is actually anexpansion of a berry bed. The ground to the left of the first photo is where I have baby blueberrybushes. The ground to the right is a path and then a second and established berry bed.We arewidening the berry bed and narrowing the path to make room for more green chile plants. Forus, hugelkultur is a way to grow in areas that most would never consider use-able. I hope bylearning to grow in marginal areas I can share what I find with others and also provideencouragement to others.

Sean is digging the trench where we are putting the Hugelkultur bed. We do not tillour soil. But when we are establishing hugelkultur beds in very poor areas wherethere is only heavy clay or mostly subsoil, we've found that double digging the bedbefore adding the rotted logs, twigs, trimmings, grass clippings, pulled weeds andkitchen scraps works much better.

Sean decided to get a little ahead in his Spanish and listened to a PimsleurSpanish lesson while he worked. He kept repeating the Spanish words aloud whilehe dug. The ditch ended up being about 22 feet long and about 3 feet wide and 22inches or more deep.

In this first photo you are facing east. The photos do not show that this is a fairlydecent slope.

Jill found her own way to dig. She's hitting the shovel with a log.

We experimented before deciding to double dig our hugelkultur beds. We madefour beds and double dug two before adding the materials. In the other two wesimply heaped the rotted wood and rest on top of the ground and then covered theheap with soil. I think because we must always start with very heavy clay, chirtand subsoil, the double dug beds did noticeably better. I will not dig into the bedsever again. They will remain strictly no-till from this point on so all the beneficialmicrobes will live happily ever after.

A curious spider found his way into our way! Its a bad photo but if you notice theshovel you can see our curious spider ws fairly large AND you can see that the soilis very much red clay. You can also see that intrepid bermuda that tries to take overeverything. Some spots in our yard are so bad that not even bermuda will grow!

At the top of the hill we struck halfway decent dirt and we stopped digging. Thereis no need to dig into good dirt. We can leave soil building to the plants, worms

and microbes here.

Michael, holding an ax, is down in the forest area behind our gardens, gatheringrotted wood. You can't tell very well but he's standing inside half of a fallen treethat had an orginal diameter of more than 45 inches. (Michael is 6' 2'' inches tall sothis stump is VERY large!) I am standing about 40 feet away and shooting thiswith a zoom.

The rotted stump in the previos photo is at the bottom left in this photo. Theother felled tree is about 20 feet long. They have been rotting since a 1997hurricane. Typically we try to take materials not out of the forest but out of the drybranch where they will wash away otherwise. But these logs are timber rattlerhavens in the dog's daytime 1/2 acre dog run. Just ten feet below these the landslopes down into one of our dry branches and then sharply slopes up into ourgardens. You are facing north in the photo.

Jill is watching her dad pile up the rotted logs. These logs crumble fairly easily inour hands. If I had a better camera, close up you would see that these are fullof mycorrhizal hyphae.

To the right you can see that Sean is gathering the wood and transporting it to thebeds. The photo shows that Sean is standing in the ditch up to about his knees. He'snearly 6 feet tall. Those rocks, by the way, will be part of the border around the bedwhen we are finished.

I like to put part of the rotted logs in, then put the rest of the yard refusesuch as twigs, trimmings, grass clippings, etc in next and then top that

off with more rotted logs. Michael cleaned the gutters which werefull of acorns. He emptied four large black garbage bags full of acorns and leaves

from the gutters down into the bed too. The rotted logs, twigs, leaves, kitchenscraps and weeds piled to about

22 inches deep.

Michael is viewing the results so far to see how much more to put in. Right behindhim is a baby blueberry bush we chose to leave.

If you are new to gardening and haven't already read my SOIL PAGE,the rotted material brings mycorrhizal fungi into the bed as well as makes a greatplace for all the rest of the beneficial microbes to live. Of course the rotted wood

provides nutrients too!

After the second layer of rotted logs, Sean is putting in grassclippings and then leaves. LOTS of leaves. We added a good bit of kitchenvegetable scraps in as well.

Sean is my chile relleno and stuffed sopaipilla nut. He's a vegetarian so I make amean green chile stew with potatoes and beans for him that he just loves to eat. Healways works hard but he's very motivated to get this bed done as it is slated forgreen chiles!

We also added green material. In the foreground is thatdreadful ground ivy, pulled and ready to compost. We'll mix the greens in with theleaves and add kitchen compost too. Sorry about photo but I lost my light had to

lighten the photo, losing resolution.

We haven't decided yet whether we'll but down the redbud that you can see in thetop left of this photo. I don't think its roots are much of a problem and it won't

grow very large.

I thought you'd like to see what we get in the way of results. I took a little red clayfrom the bed we just started and placed it on top of a finished bed we did two yearsago, for contrast. We keep the finished bed well mulched and I grew red clover init last winter. Look at the difference!

The bed pictured above was established at the same time as the bed in the photo tothe left and sits adjacent to it. But we did not use hugelkulture in this bed. We didkeep it mulched and we did grow red clover in it last winter. Again, you can seethe contrast.

We mixed amendments into the soil that we've removed from the trench. I wouldnormally mix in some finished compost but I have none right now. I mixed rockphosphate, calcium, lime, green sand and sand into the soil before we pulled thesoil, all 22 or so inches, back over the pile. The last step was planting the entirebed in rye. I chose rye because of the steep slope, hoping to prevent erosion. Therye will help the materials in the bed degrade, keep the soil from washing away andbring some much needed nitrogen into the soil. Below is a not very helpful photo ofhow far we are now with the rye seed scattered on the mound. The mound, BTW,will in time level out as the wood decays.

We're not finished! In the spring the beds will be ready to be planted into. Whatwe'll plant is pots! To help ensure our plants have enough soil to grow, we make 6- 8 inch or larger paper mache' pots using flour paste and newspaper. The pots arenot sturdy ones but ones with just enough paper to hold the soil. We'll fill thesepots with soil and compost and then plant peppers into them. As the pots degrade,so do the materials in the hugelkultur beds. The pepper roots will soon grow out ofthe pots and into the beds and beds will be ready for them.

The first year you should not expect a good harvest. That will come the second

I covered the entire 22 foot area so that birds won't eat my seed. I buy sheer drapesat the thrift store for a dollar for this purpose, or I use burlap, cardboard and, rarely,plastic.

year and every year after that as long as you keep the beds topped off withcompost and keep them well mulched or in cover crops when you are not usingthem. Organic gardening is about long term and not quick fixes.

Hugelkultur is in a way like growing on top of compost piles. We also do that.Below are our latest compost piles just getting started. We use this method becausewe have little room for our plants and must find as much growing space aspossible. These bins sit just outside of a dripline of a very large white oak as wellas next to our forest. The bins will get about 14 hours of sun a day but the groundis full of oak roots, making the area nearly impossible to grow in. By filling eachbin with compostable materials and then topping them with soil, we can growpotatoes. As the compost degrades, the level lowers and we can mulch thepotatoes, encouraging a better crop.

Dogwoods line the fence behind the bins and their roots also compete in this spot; Idon't want to cut my dogwoods down!

Another problem with growing near the oak is that the oak takes up the moisturequickly, making the soil in this area dry most of the time.

Below is a photo of the top of one of last year's compost piles. Potatoes aregrowing in the top. The potatoes are just getting started (seen at the tip of myfinger on Jan 12th). I can easily cover these bins if we expect a very cold night ortwo.

To help hold moisture in the bins, I plan to slide plain cardboard in along the sidesto line the inside sides of each bin. My husband can bring a lot of cardboard homeand we use it as fast as he finds it.

I put about 3 inches of newspaper under each pile. This kept the roots of the treesout of the piles last year and I hope will do so again this year!

Around the borders of each bin I planted Fava Beans just to see if I could improvethe soil a little.

I'm thinking I could perhaps grow some flowers around the outer edge of the binsor perhaps peas, bean or cucumbers and just not expect a great harvest. I'd like touse that nice verticle space, that's for certain!

If you have gotten this far, I have a favor to ask. Please let me know if I havemade any factual errors on this page. I always welcome new information and newideas. And if you'd like to ask more, please feel free to write me at

laurabrownmckenzie ["at" symbol] att.net

[I post my email address this way to prevent spiders from picking it up forspammers to use. Thanks!]