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Post by Granny Smith on Mar 29, 2011 22:56:24 GMT -5
Hugelkultur is nothing more than making raised beds filled with rotten wood. This makes for raised beds loaded with organic material, nutrients, air pockets for the roots of what you plant, etc. As the years pass, the deep soil of your bed becomes incredibly rich and loaded with soil life. As the wood shrinks, it makes more tiny air pockets - so your hugelkultur becomes sort of self tilling. The first few years, the composting process will slightly warm your soil giving you a slightly longer growing season. The woody matter helps to keep nutrient excess from passing into the ground water - and then refeeding that to your garden plants later. Plus, by holding SO much water, hugelkultur could be part of a system for growing crops in the desert with no irrigation. www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/newworldgeek.com/?p=1286permaculture.org.au/2010/08/03/the-art-and-science-of-making-a-hugelkultur-bed-transforming-woody-debris-into-a-garden-resource/Videos~ There's a lot more information out there, just Google it. I wasn't very patient with sites loading tonight or I could have added dozens more links.
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Post by joanfromzone6 on Mar 30, 2011 9:27:27 GMT -5
i've recently heard of this and will definitely give it a try - even if i can't pronounce it -
also - it does introduce a new small business opportunity - selling rotten wood !
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Post by susan on Mar 30, 2011 9:35:54 GMT -5
I haven't looked at the links yet, but that sounds interesting. The reason I have decent soil where my garden is located is all the trees behind it. For years before we bought this lot, the elderly lady next door who owned it just kept it mowed. Those trees dropped leaves and small branches that composted over the years until I actually have a small amount of top soil where we are known for orange clay. I've got hunks of dead bark to clean up on the ground around the wood chopping area and I was thinking about composting them. We've also got lots of tiny twigs from the trees that we are cutting up for firewood. I think some of that will go to compost also.
Susan
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Post by Valerie on Mar 30, 2011 9:57:23 GMT -5
Cool! It makes sense. Dig around in the woods and see how awesome that soil is, where nobody messes with it and stuff just falls and rots where it lays (lies, whatever!)
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Post by joanfromzone6 on Mar 30, 2011 10:31:04 GMT -5
I've got hunks of dead bark to clean up on the ground around the wood chopping area and I was thinking about composting them. Susan well, if you first dig a trench where you intend to have a planting row you can put all that bark and chips in the bottom - they'll compost there very well even while plants are growing above - best to add some good manure with the wood since the rot process for wood consumes nitrogen -
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Post by meemo on Mar 30, 2011 12:27:06 GMT -5
Hey, this is good stuff. I've been thinking about asking henrys dad to build me me boxes to grow tomatoes in. The yard is already all dug up. Especially in the front. It would be easy to make a grow space.
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Post by Valerie on Mar 30, 2011 15:43:15 GMT -5
I can just see Dave's face if I told him I want raised beds full of rotten wood! That would be akin to saying lets build a hotel for roaches in our back yard! I'd sure want that thing far from the house!
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Post by Valerie on Jul 6, 2014 16:21:45 GMT -5
Y'all remember this? I made a small one around my baby plum tree yesterday. Dave is still not onboard with me digging up the yard and burying rotten wood, or even building heaps of it, so I have to do it stealthily. He doesn't know that "bed" I put there yesterday has half-burned (hey, biochar!) logs at the bottom of it. I did kind of a combo hugelkultur/lasagna thing, though. I put down cardboard first, and then built on top of it. There was no digging that matted grass. We have the kind that has tough runner roots. I'll just let the worms eat it for me.
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Post by Granny Smith on Jul 6, 2014 18:47:33 GMT -5
I'm thinking about doing the same thing with the cardboard. Since the dozer worked this place over, the ground is so hard you can hardly get a shovel into it.
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Post by Valerie on Jul 6, 2014 18:54:13 GMT -5
Gayle, in the book, Lasagna Gardening, she did it on ground that had been used as a parking lot and was hard as a rock. In only a year or two of lasagna beds, it was soft and crumbly and good.
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Post by Granny Smith on Jul 6, 2014 21:28:31 GMT -5
Good to know! As soon as I get my van back, I'm going to get some compost and peat and start working on a couple of beds. I have plenty of rotting wood!
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Post by Valerie on Jul 9, 2014 6:13:17 GMT -5
I used cardboard, then made like a ring of logs out a bit from the tree. Then I filled the ring with sticks that were down from the last storm we had. I added about half a wheelbarrow of chicken bedding, the older, bottom layer where it's mostly turned to sawdust and dirt. I got all that good and wet and then put 3 bags of potting soil over it all and watered that in good. Then I put about 6" of loose hay and cypress mulch about 8" out around the base (still on the cardboard) for Dave to drive on when he mows. Then he won't have to use the weadeater or go in a tight little square like before. I poked holes down through the mulch and put cowpea seeds all around, to fix nitrogen and help hold it all together, and planted 4 plants too (zinnia, pentas, thyme, & comfrey). The organic purists say not to use cardboard because it's made with chemicals (what isn't?!), but in that food summit I've been listening to online this week, the people yesterday highly recommend it because it holds water so well, can be gotten for free, and breaks down and goes back to the soil. It sure works for me! I even heard one of them recommend putting the cardboard under the hugelkultur mound! Yay us! The permaculture people here say to dig a trench and bury the wood, to hold water in the ground. I'm not doing it, though. We have enough drainage problems as it is, without creating more groundwater storage! From what I've been reading and hearing, I don't think you really need compost and peat, unless you already have them around. These people are real big on working only with what you have. The wood holds so much water, that the peat isn't necessary like in a traditional lasagna garden. These guys just pile up wood, fill in the cracks with whatever they can find, and dump dirt over top of it all. Then mulch with leaves, hay, or whatever. Course, I had to buy dirt! and the wood chip mulch was mostly for pretty.
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Post by Granny Smith on Jul 9, 2014 20:44:20 GMT -5
I was going to get peat and compost to mix with our dirt because it's just heavy clay and rock now that the topsoil is gone. I thought those would lighten it up and put in some nutrients. I might just use plain dirt, if I can find some that's good.
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Post by Valerie on Jul 10, 2014 7:36:43 GMT -5
You might need to buy some fishin worms too, to get the process going.
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Post by Granny Smith on Jul 10, 2014 11:14:27 GMT -5
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