Jake and I have been busy with many projects around the farm. However, we recently found some time to complete a Hugelkultur bed. A Hugelkultur, for those of you who are unfamiliar with one, are raised garden beds that are made of logs, stacked on top of each other, and then covered with dirt. You then plant into this dirt, and over time the logs break down releasing moisture and nutrients to your plants/trees. Depending on the wood you use, some Hugelkultur beds will last 20+ years. Here are a few pictures of our Hugelkultur bed.
Lessons learned? Well, we layered some hay between the layers of logs. We don’t know what will happen with this hay, but I’m sure it will break down quickly. However, we neglected to put any dirt in the air gaps between the logs. This might be a problem, but I can’t really say yet. I feel like the roots will need something to root into, but who knows! Another issue we ran into was the fact that we have CLAY soils here. I’m talking some serious clay. We gathered up a few loads of “dirt” and attempted to cover the logs with it. The clay just clumps together and rolls off the logs. We ended up forcing the clay into all of the nooks and crannies, in addition to a decent layer on top. After this was done, we covered the entire bed with a nice layer of hay. We know that we need more layers of dirt, not clay, over the entire bed for it to be effective. So, I will keep you all updated on that. I also have pictures of the completed bed, which are not show above, and I will add those sometime too. Been real busy around here so my posts are becoming less frequent. Sorry about that!
Until next time, take care.
