GARDEN PLANNING
It's February, but it feels like April, or maybe late March at the worst. The picture below was taken today, as you can see there is no snow, and the soil is pretty much thawed in the first few inches at least. Below that, it is frozen, but I was still able to hack into it with a pickaxe.
Soon to be hugelkultur mound
If you haven't read any of my past postings, I will briefly describe the benefits of hugelkultur. It was invented by a very wise and inventive man name Sepp Holtzer, who is Dutch. It consists of wood mounds covered in dirt, and left to decay. The decaying wood soaks up and retains lots of moisture from rain fall, and when it's planted, the roots have access to that water, as well as nutrients from the decaying wood. A hugelkultur bed that's large enough may not need to be watered at all! This has some very obvious benefits in a dry climate like mine, watering is a pain, and costs me money. If I build a couple of these beds every year, I will eventually have enough of them that my gardening will be a relative breeze. These mounds should be plantable immediately, with the addition of chicken manure to the pile. The only difficulty is getting enough wood to make a decent sized pile!
I will add more photos when I have placed all the wood, I will need to wait for the soil to thaw a bit more before I really get going, since I will need quite a bit of soil to go on top.
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4 comments:
would these be as affective if they were dug into the ground and then just covered with the top layer?
Digging these below ground level would be even better than piling on top of the ground. The surrounding soil would probably contribute moisture, and you could put a lot more wood into the pile without making it too high. The secret to success with this technique is more wood, more wood, and then more wood! Pine is ok, hardwoods are better. Ash, maple, cedar are all fine, and a mix of all might be best.
Cool, we are going to try some of these this year, do you think it would be a good way to start trees?
In reply to Anonymous (1 year later), to do a hugelkultur tree planting, you would need to dig DEEP, and keep in mind that trees will expand their root systems far beyond the initial planting site. While it might be useful for the initial growth of the tree, it could also interfere with the roots, if the wood does not rot quickly enough, and the tree would simply direct the roots around the wood. This is something that someone needs to try, and post results from!
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