Anybody used hugelkulture? share thoughts, please

I find many of the "permie" ideas regarding gardening and livestock production are impractical, at best, and downright silly, at worst. The chicken house brush pile is an example of incredibly silly thinking and the one perched on hay bales, was needlessly cumbersome and labor intensive for the expected outcome.

Mounding up wood and soil into a mound in order to plant a few shrubs or perennial type food stuff seems, to me, to be a huge amount of work for too little pay off. One could just layer in compost materials over time and get the same sustainability, moisture retention, and good yields, so I'm not a huge fan of the whole hugel type gardening unless one has a problem area in the yard~big hole filled with brush/wood/rocks and has a pile of said materials there and want to use the space anyway, though I am on board for permaculture.

Joel_BC said:

Thanks. I went to your blog, too.

The blog date indicates you established the raspberry hugel in 2012. Do you have pictures of the raspberry bushes from later years? That'd be fun to say (and probably impressive, from what you're relating).

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Actually, they grew to full fighting height that very year. I got that quadruple harvest that first season. Ever since then, the harvests are huge and the big battle is beating back all the shoots every spring. If I wanted to I could have acres of raspberries right now.

I was suddenly locked out of Permies at one point, too. And I agree that many of the ideas are theoretical and have not been tried. Or have not been tried in comparison with more realistic ways of doing things. I followed the owner some years ago and found him to be a big talk no action type, unable to answer any questions on anything he posted. He mostly posted other people's ideas and at one time use this forum to direct people to his site. I think I was locked out and actually my username was even changed after I responded to an email newsletter that was so full of f-bombs as to be unreadable. I'm guessing that was it, I didn't go to the site very often and when I went back one day I couldn't get in and my username was changed. The whole thing was just weird.

Actually, I'm having a little Deja Vu moment.

I made a hugelculture bed. I found it to be not so great. I made a high one, like described on Permies and was disappointed with the results. Then the chickens discovered it and scratched away lots of the mulch. Because it was high, it was hard to keep the rain from washing the mulch and soil down. It's maybe 4' high. I had LOTS of dead timber and I thought it was a good way to use it. I still do. I am going to re-work it and re-mulch it.

I dug a trench just outside the garden fence on the low end and buried large tree trunks. My thinking was to stop erosion, trap moisture, and it has done so. I planted grapevines on the fence, but by the time the nursery shipped them it was HOT here and they all died.

I recently dug a few trenches, filled with wood chips, covered back up with soil and then topped with wood chips. I am going to plant purple hull peas.

We spent last summer cleaning an acre of green briar infested forest. There are a few low spots that we piled dead branches in. We cleaned out the barn and covered them with horse manure. I'll plant clover seed on the piles this coming fall.

I am also using the BTE wood chip mulch method. Our first year here was a total failure. The soil is sand-like beach sand. The second year we hauled pine shavings from a horse event center, wintered pigs in the garden and the 2nd year was only half a failure. This year is starting out good, lots of wood chips to hold the moisture in.

On the tall hugel beds, for me at least, the jury is still out.

I need to do some trimming...is it ok to use fresh cut logs? Not really logs, but more like BIG branch trimmings. I like to experiment...maybe I'll give it a shot if I can find a spot.

frustratedearthmother said:

I need to do some trimming...is it ok to use fresh cut logs? Not really logs, but more like BIG branch trimmings. I like to experiment...maybe I'll give it a shot if I can find a spot.

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Dig a trench and put the branches in there, cover with manure, cover with soil, top with wood chips. I see no reason why it would not work, it might even loosen up your clay!

In my experience that's about the only way to loosen up clay. I did some experimenting. I like lasagna gardening.

I have a HK bed in progress. I am only building it b/c I have a nasty spot left over from having a lot of tree removal and earth work done. The site is heavy clay, and some gravelly sub soil mixed in, with plenty of large sized rocks. It is about 40' long, with the high elevation butting up to the flat area that would/could be lawn. My chicken coops are also close to that area. It slopes down to an area that would require a huge amount of fill to make it useable. I had a lot of dead wood available, so decided to build a HK into that bank. I've completed about 16' of it. all without any power equipment. I did not have the benefit of the recommended trench, so it is constructed with logs piled up, covered with lots of leaves, garden debris, coop litter, soil stolen from other locations, grass clippings. So, you might consider it to be a HK/lasagna hybrid. The area planted has produced very well. But, it required lots of watering due to the many voids left between the logs due to not having the needed soil to construct it properly.

Here's my take on the method: It is viable, but only for the home owner who has a site that would otherwise be not usable. And only if you have the materials on hand to create the Hk. I would not use wood to construct a HK if that wood could be used to heat my home. If you have a lot of dead wood to get rid of, a site that needs this kind of management, it's a worth while project. It would be awesome as a way to manage water drainage. And it would be awesome if there were power equipment to build it according to the recommended technique including starting with a trench, and topping it off with the soil removed from the trench.

It is a huge amount of work if building without power equipment.

Last season, I grew a huge crop of squash in the small completed area. Most of the hubbards were 20 - 30#.

That's good input.

Lazy Gardener said:

Most of the hubbards were 20 - 30#.

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That's awesome!