mostaza
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Location: Southern Oregon

starting a hugelkultur

I have been gathering truckloads of rotting oak, oak leaves, and hay that's mixed with horse and goat manure. I'm about to have a backhoe dig trenches 3' wide 1-2 feet deep and hundreds of feet in length. This year is dedicated to a hedge row around the north half of 5 acres(about 2 hectar) I plan for a huge diversity of wind-blocking/soil building trees. The rotting oak will be stacked 1'-2', topped with alternating layers of hay/leaf/soil. Cover crop will be planted everywhere around the trees with a 3' swath mulched with leaves around each tree. Trees will be ON and AROUND the raised beds. The 5-acres within was disc-plowed for its first and last time solely to give crops(oats, rye, wheat, clover,legume soil builder blend) an initial boost. Masanobu Fukuoka is the role model for my grain field(except for the plowing!) My Hugelkultur will be dedicated to trees, vegetables, shrubs+....Bill Mollison's 7-layer food forest. I am relatively new to all of this, but have aimed my entire life towards it over the past 2 years. Photos coming soon. Any advice or questions are very appreciated

cynthia_h
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Be sure to search this site for Fukuoka-sensei information. We've had some wonderful threads on his philosophy and approach to the earth.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

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applestar
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Second that.

Also, there are several threads discussing Hugelkultur, I believe. Have you read them?

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=823&highlight=hugelkultur

This one started out discussing compost and OM, and developed into very interesting revelations by 2cents. Overall, the discussions here was extremely informative: https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=69924&highlight=hugelkultur#69924

and The Helpful Gardener linked from there to this thread:
https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14052

This one's actually a potato growing thread, but hugelkultur is mentioned. As you probably know, potatoes are supposed to grow well as a pioneer hugelkultur crop:
https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16309&highlight=hugelkultur

And 2cents started a thread on how it's working out:
https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19834

I think we're talking about this in your other thread, but let's not forget Paul Stamet's 8th layer: fungi.
Last edited by applestar on Wed Nov 25, 2009 10:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

2cents
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Location: Ohio

Mostaza,
I love the idea of Hugelkulter.
Sorry I am late to this discussion, but I am busier this year and have little time to post.

The bed I started 1+ year ago was for veggies. It was a lot of heavy and ground up wood. I did my best to incorporate greens and it did heat up last fall/early winter. But, there was a lot of woody material underneath the pile(10' x 16') It was over 4 foot high. Of course there was lots of air in there. It is about a foot high less than a year later. This fall a second crude soil test shows over 50% organic material. But the OM is what I've always put into my garden and keeps it fungal and I believe improves tilth.
It had mixed results depending on crop variety the first year. I should have stuck with the beans and pumpkins the first year. But, I needed to know how everything else would fair.
I had a bad year for potatoes everywhere in the garden, so it may not have been a good indicator for them.
All other veggies performed better outside the Hugelkulture. Which is what I anticipated from past experience.
I had better luck this fall in that bed with root crops. But, a cold October may have dash hopes of good success, of course it may be their roots are getting down to heavy woody stuff as well. Root crops are covered with straw and I will be looking in on them from time to time.

Wishing you the best with your Garden

paul wheaton
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Joined: Thu Apr 09, 2009 4:32 pm

Hugelkultur will be kinda so/so the first year and really shines following years.

Sepp Holzer is really well aligned with fukuoka. Sepp makes his hugelkultur beds about six feet tall!

2cents
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Location: Ohio

The HugelKulter bed started fall 2008. 2009 was not great success, although pumpkins, beans and taters were okay.

This year it looks like dirt, digging around you can find some woody stuff 6 inch-1 foot deep. But it is alomost all broken down, that was really fast on the decomposition. Almost no dirt added, just a few shovels of clay.

This year it is going great guns. radishes, beans, pumpkins, potatoes, carrots. Everything is big and strong looking.

So far I've harvested: lettuce & carrots planted late last fall, radishes will be ready in a few days.

I have a Atlantic Giant planted in this bed........plan is for it to be the culmination of a successful Hugelkulter experiment. No I am not doing the raise a world record. I am just hoping for a couple of the biggest Jack-o-lanterns on the street. hoping to need multiple candles or put Christmas lights inside the Pumpkin.

Having fun in the garden,
2cents :D

paul wheaton
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If your bed is currently more than three feet deep, and if you mulch a bit, you shouldn't have to irrigate this year.

ronbre
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Joined: Sun May 16, 2010 7:34 pm
Location: Michigan

I have been doing some smaller size experiements along this line, and am having very good success so far with what I've done, this will egg me on to doing larger and more agressive hugel beds



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