Permaculture gardening: Building a hugelkultur.

When we bought our new home last summer, and started to renovate it, one part of the garden was littered with a huge amount of old, partly decomposed, wooden logs. Initially I didn't know what to do with it, but then I discovered a new gardening technique, due to my research on permaculture, food forests, and edible gardens (for our new garden ofcourse!). It is called hugelkultur.

A hugelkultur or hugelbed is basically a trench, filled with wooden logs, smaller branches and other organic matter. The top gets covered with the soil from the trench. The end result looks like a raised garden bed or a small hill, depending on your particular setup. The idea behind this is, that the material in the hugelkultur holds moisture far better than a normal garden bed and provides your plants with enough nutrients for years, while the logs are slowly decomposing.

We had rented a power shovel for the weekend anyway, so I decided to use it to dig a large trench and create the hugelbed. This way I could make room and get rid of all those unsightly logs. Also, it was an excellent excuse to work on our future garden instead of on the house, which of course has more priority, if we want to move in any time soon.

Step 1: dig a shallow trench

Step 2: fill it with large logs, smaller branches and other organic material.

Step 3: Cover with the soil from the trench

Step 4: Add layers of compost and mulch (shredded leaves or woodchips for example) to prevent erosion, the growing of weeds and to keep in the moisture. Use a lot more than pictured below. I wasn't finished when I took this photo!

I'm leaving it like this over the winter. This spring I will plant artichokes, rhurbarb, cranberries and blueberries on the hugelbed, together with lots of poppy flowers, herbs and strawberries as a groundcover. Let's see what happens!