DEFINITION
Hugelkultur is a German word meaning hill culture or hill mound. It is a no-dig raised bed that is composed of woody material from LARGE to small. Everything from BIG logs to small twigs, leaves, grass, hay pretty much any biomass. Then covered with soil.
EXPLANATION
Hugelkultur mimics the natural cycling found on the forest floor. It will hold moisture at the same time drain well to help prevent your plants from getting wet feet. They also build fertility with a slow release of nutrients from the breaking down of the debris. Decomposing organic matter in Hugelkultur beds raises the temperature just enough to boost plant growth, along with them being above ground you will be able to growing food longer and start growing earlier. Hugelkultur maximize the amount of space to grow with a greater surface area and will creating small micro-climates around the mound. They are great place for growing any type of fruit or vegetable.
HISTORY
From what I can find Germans have been using this kind of technique for hundreds of years. Sepp Holzer’s and German horticulturalists Hans Beba are two of the names tossed around for “credit” of Hugelkultur. People like Bill Mollison, David Holmgren and Geoff Lawton have been pioneers in bringing Hugelkultur to the people. Germans weren’t the only ones that used a form of Hugelkultur. The Native Americans showed the settlers how to grow native crops like maize, beans and squash by mounding up soil around stumps of fallen trees, making a Hugelkultur type bed. It is said that they put fish in each mound for fertility as well.
HOW I MADE MY HUGELKULTUR BEDS
Built our beds in late fall early winter before the ground had time to freeze. I would recommend that time of year so the Hugelkultur has a little time to decompose over the winter. They were the first project I started after we painted some walls and put some floors in the house. Before I auctly started building the Mounds I built a A-FRAME level. The A-FRAME level will allowed me to build them on contour of the land to better slow and capture water.
(Image Source From Sepp Holzer's Permaculture By: Sepp Holzer)
There is a couple of ways to build a hugelkultur. Dug into the ground or built right on top of the ground. I decided to dig mine and mainly because I could use the soil that was dug out to put on top at the end. So I didn’t have to buy top soil or find it elsewhere.
(Image Source From Sepp Holzer's Permaculture By: Sepp Holzer)
Next was digging a trench 2 foot deep 30 foot long. There is no size requirement for Hugelkultur. You can have a 100 acre farm or a small urban backyard Hugelkultur will work great in any setting.
When I got the trench done, witch was done with a good old shovel, the next step was to put BIG logs in the bottom. I put a mixture of old fallen decayed trees and newly fallen from our woods. On top of the logs went the branches, sticks, leaves and grass/hay. Filled the trench up with the debre above the ground about a foot.
Now it is time to add the soil that I dug out when making the trench. After adding the top soil I planted clover all over the mound and covered with 1-2 inches of mulch. Don’t forget this step! As I’ve said before Mother Nature is modest and will cover herself up if you don’t. You don’t want to turn a low maintenance system into a high maintenance weeding project. lol.
The last thing was digging a small ditch, aka swale, in front of the Hugelkulture. This ditch will help the garden bed catch and hold water. You can plant into the bed right away or give it time over the winter to decompose a little. I hope this inspires you to build the best garden bed you can build!!
This was a fitting pots for me today since I spent a few hours reconstructing one of the Hugelkultur beds this morning. My boar Floppy got out of his enclosure because I didn't notice his electric fence wasn't hot enough. He dug up about a 10 foot section of one of the mounds. I was able to find 3 of the asparagus roots balls. I think they will make it..Crazy boy!!
THANK YOU FOR POPPING BY!!
COMMENT, RESTEEM, UPVOTE, FOLLOW
Your hugel mounds look amazing! How old are they?
I made some when I lived in California and moved on so I'm not sure how they are now (what.. 7 years later...). I've only heard of the amazingness of hugels, never stuck around to experience it! I'm also not clear on adding more nitrogen over time to offset the decomposing carbon. Any thoughts?
LOVE that you included the bit about the mulch. A homestead priority around here too! Great post. Love hugels!
Resteemed!!
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They are only a year and a half old right now. I have heard the same that it only gets better with time.😁
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As far as adding nitrogen I planted a cover crop of clover witch is a nitrogen fixing plant, chop and drop with comfrey and other green plants also planted Mimosa tree and Autumn olive tree. They are both nitrogen fixing trees. I had the same question at first. The idea for me is to mimic the forest floor. Since we don't add nitrogen to the forest and there is woody material falling all the time I wondered how nature did it. After looking at my patch of woods and picking out the different species of trees and plants I noteced that the Mimosa tree, Autumn Olive and clover were the three main nitrogen fixers so those were the ones I went with.
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Thank you for contributing your knowledge to help others! The Sotall Community has linked to your post here.. If you write any future articles with instructions on how to do any tasks related to a homestead or survival, to ensure they are added to the directory, please submit them. They will be added as soon as possible.
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Your welcome. I enjoy sharing what I'v learned from others. And THANK YOU for the link!!
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Ive been thinking about these types of beds. The land i purchased was cleared for timber and its had about 6 years to grow back. The whole area is spotted with stumps and Ive been thinking of making each stump a mound for a native edible plant.
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That would be a great idea. Don't see why it wouldn't work.
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Thank you for sharing
My girlfriend @skycae is a budding permaculturist and while I was familiar with the concept, your post has done a great job of filling in the blanks. I intend on employing these techniques in my own personal future gardening projects. I find the native american way of growing things on top of old stumps to be a very practical and genius method of working together with nature to help continue the cycle.
Thanks again!
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Glad it helped you @offgridninja! I really like the native american method also.😁
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This was a fantastic post. I found it very informative. If I had the land space for this I would definitely be giving it a go. It usually isn't super successful, but I always try to have a couple of vegetable plants in a garden each summer.
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Thanks @bozz. You should try it. It could be 2 foot by 2 foot if your only wanting to grow a couple plants.😁
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Great post on Hugelkulture. I'm interested to see how they turn out once they are more established.
I am pretty sure those illustrations are originally from Sepp Holzer's Permaculture though. I have a copy in the tiny house.
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OK........ I'm not the best on computers and am new at blogging..... I saved those two photos off the articles I read and sited the web site I got them from. I'm open on how I "should" do it next time. Thanks @canadianrenegade.😁
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Hopefully I didn't come off wrong, I wasn't trying to be the blogging police. I just didn't want a couple of random websites getting credit for images that weren't theirs.
I found the HugelKulture articles at the two websites you sourced and it appears that they are using the the images without stating the source (there were a whole bunch of other articles doing it too) so I can understand the confusion. I would hope that if I make an honest error like this someone would point it out so I can correct it. You can still edit your article (up to 7 days) to include the book as the source.
Off the top of my head I would just site it like this:
Image Source - From Sepp Holzer's Permaculture By: Sepp Holzer
I'me sure that's not the perfect way to site an image from a book but at least people are pointed in the right direction. There are resources online that have detailed instructions on how to site parts of books.
I usually avoid grabbing random images off websites just so I don't run into an issue like this. You can find copyright free images that are suitable for most topics on pixabay, unsplash and on google if you search then select >images>tools>usage rights>labeled for reuse.
For example I found this one that way.
Source
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At first it did feel a little like the blog police knocking on my door. But no worries I understand where you were coming from.
Thank you for helping a noob out. I'll resource the pic in this post and check out your recommendations when I need to get a photo that I didn't take. Thank you for responding @canadianrenegade .
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No problem, I wouldn't have upvoted and commented if I didn't enjoy the article. ☺️
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I really enjoyed this article and am sharing with my husband. He went through a Permaculture training class, not for certification, back in CA. Now we're up inland PNW and started our hugelkultur beds in 2 semicircles, hoping to recreate something he saw from a permie in Montana (big bearded guy -can,'t remember his name now) where with the curved beds, he reflected and concentrated some of the elusive winter sun and successfully grew a citrus tree! Ambitious, but what the heck! Worth a try, right?
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Thank you @crowbarmama! It is a great idea to use a key hole design to capture sun and reflect it. I could see how it would make a small micro climate and go up a few zones in that spot. Going to have to make some plans for that in the future.👍
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Incredible post. Those hugel beds are awesome!! Sorry about Floppy and the asparagus! I do hope they make it. I have been saving materials to build a mound, this was so timely. I did not know I needed a swale either. Resteemed, thank you for the article!
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Thank you @karnfoster! Don't have to have a swale but it can help your bed capture water or if you have to much water you can direct it around the bed.
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You have received an upvote from @livesustainably. I promote and curate content that encourages and educates others in living sustainably.
I also run competitions for those making the world a better place. Check out this weeks The only Environmental Competition on Steemit
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Thank you @livesustainably!👍
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