Author Topic: Hugelkultur Bed Picture Thread (Read 12071 times)

RationalHusker · « **Reply #30 on:** February 04, 2012, 09:20:38 AM »

Quote from: tomh on January 29, 2012, 07:27:31 PM

Here is my experiment with Hugelkultur. So far so good.

The hugelkultur swale is really coming around. I look forward to using it as a foundation to starting my food forest.

I really like your hugelswale design. Please post more photos as it progesses. What are you hoping to grow there (annual veggies, perennials, or shrubs)?

PrepperJim · « **Reply #31 on:** March 04, 2012, 04:55:18 PM »

I've completed my hugelkultur bed and gotten the first plants into the ground.

This project started out as "cut down that damn overgrown bush/tree in the back yard, honey" and turned into a hugelkulture bed.

So here is the tree.

IMG_3781 by PrepperJim

Here is me cutting it down (notice all the safety gear!)

IMG_3787 by PrepperJim, on Flickr

Here is the damn stump that I had to dig and cut out.

IMG_3829 by PrepperJim, on Flickr

Here is the five foot by nine foot by five foot deep trench I dug to bury the stump and limbs. That is Jake, the survival yellow lab (critical buddy!).

IMG_4260 by PrepperJim, on Flickr

Here is the completed 4 ft by 8 ft bed above grade.

IMG_4448 by PrepperJim, on Flickr

This is my other bed built by the previous owners. I have peppers, onions, oregano and cilantro planted here with a blackberry bush that I planted last year. You can also see my 45 watt solar project with a tote that houses the charge controller and deep cycle battery.

IMG_4451 by PrepperJim, on Flickr

I planted bush beans in the hugelkultur bed and they are poking out of the ground after one week!! I will plant the other half of the bed in a week so I get staggered production. Frankly, I cannot wait until the first crop produces!

IMG_4450 by PrepperJim, on Flickr

So, we will see how the crops grow.

aman · « **Reply #32 on:** March 17, 2012, 11:55:03 AM »

Well in my normal way of just jumping in and doing stuff without actually knowing what I am doing here is what happened today at the allotment. Although it was a beautiful day there were not a lot of other people at the allotment today to ask me what I was up to due to the fact that there was a rugby match on the telly so while I was up to my elbows in soil and funky wood the rest of the population was shouting at the telly with a beer in their hands and not shouting at me for putting wood in the ground.

After about a minute of beard rubbing I finally said to my wife "Is it OK if I put a hugelkultur bed here?" "A hugel what!?" "A raised bed" " I suppose so" I set about attacking this otherwise unused part of the allotment.

We have pretty shallow top soil on this site so I dug a trench down until I hit the shale subsoil. The trench is about 2 foot wide by 1 foot deep and about 10 foot long.

Then I started laying in the bigger bits of wood.

And carried on until I ran out.

The area I chose didn't really have any turf because it was dug over last year but never used so I decided to dig a trench beside the bed on the uphill side to provide some turf and also to act as a water catchment for the bed. This also doubled the amount of soil for covering the wood. (I'm making it up as I go along at this point)
I turned the turf over on top of the pile of wood ans started shovelling the soil from the trench. I then shovelled the soil from the original trench on top.

The resulting bed is now about 2 foot above ground level AND 3 foot above the bottom of the up hill trench.

I still have a bit more soil to drag up over it and i have a load of composted material that i could put on top if need be.

tomh · « **Reply #33 on:** March 18, 2012, 12:18:14 AM »

I added hugelkultur raised bed in front of my hugelkultur swale. Everything is coming along nicely.

Just finished up a few weeks ago. I'm planting perennials and herbs and seeding with nitrogen fixing plants.

Notice the tall green grass wrapping around my raised beds. The rain has been nice to use this winter in Austin Texas

aman · « **Reply #34 on:** March 19, 2012, 02:37:27 PM »

I like the look of your dome there Tom

I started work on my geodesic fruit cage this weekend

I shal post some pictures when it's done

Nicodemus · « **Reply #35 on:** May 30, 2012, 07:45:32 AM »

Here are my Raised-Not-So-Hugelkultur-Beds. I apologize to anyone who has been following the progress in my garden thread because I have previously posted the pictures there.

Below is a picture taken at completion of the first dig. It basically gave me 6 semi-level spots to place the raised beds in my back yard. The land slopes top to bottom from between 17º to 30º and from left to right at about 10º.

Here are the 4' x 8' boxes that I preassembled.

Here is one of the stacks that I drew wood from. It's from an ornamental pear tree in our yard that had begun to suffer from center rot. It sat there drying for a couple of months. More wood came from the wood pile in our courtyard and was consisted mainly of maple.

Here are the beds after the second dig and after being filled with wood, sod, leaves from last fall and fill dirt. The second dig went about 2' down and left a shelf for the raised bed boxes to sit upon.

This is a shot standing above the lower center bed. It's kind of hard to get an idea of what is going on due to the odd perspective.

The beds after the frames have been set in, leveled and dirt was placed over the wood in the holes.

The beds after being filled with compost and a cover of shredded mulch.

The mound of dirt you see at the top of the hill will be reduced in height and spread further along the boundary between the neighbor's yard and my own so that it can divert runoff from his garden which is upslope from mine.

RationalHusker · « **Reply #36 on:** June 05, 2012, 06:24:26 PM »

Quote from: Nicodemus on May 30, 2012, 07:45:32 AM

Here are my Raised-Not-So-Hugelkultur-Beds. I apologize to anyone who has been following the progress in my garden thread because I have previously posted the pictures there.

That looks really, really good, Nico. Anything planted, yet?

Nicodemus · « **Reply #37 on:** June 05, 2012, 07:37:25 PM »

Quote from: RationalHusker on June 05, 2012, 06:24:26 PM

That looks really, really good, Nico. Anything planted, yet?

Thanks!

I have Tomatoes, Peppers, Squash, Cucumbers, Beans, Corn, Sunflower, Carrots, Radish, Watermelon, Cantaloupe, Pumpkin and a few other things I can't recall at the moment.

lhunt · « **Reply #38 on:** June 12, 2012, 07:54:29 PM »

I thought I'd share my first real attempt at a hugelkultur swale on contour bed.

http://youtu.be/xfWvdSbCF3w

This bed is 6x16 with a 2' peak. Each side is 4' long from ground to peak making the plantable surface area to be 8x16 thus increasing the surface area due to the mounding of soil as opposed to the normal flat garden.

We have 6 - 4x4 beds (96 sqft). This 6x16 (96 sqft) which is actually closer to 8x16 due to the mounding effect is more like (128 sqft) - you can feel free to correct my math this is all estimation anyway. I can't wait to see how it performs over the next few seasons!

Nicodemus · « **Reply #39 on:** July 18, 2012, 09:14:48 PM »

Nice work Ihunt!

lhunt · « **Reply #40 on:** July 18, 2012, 09:36:32 PM »

Quote from: Nicodemus on July 18, 2012, 09:14:48 PM

Nice work Ihunt!

thanks Nicodemus! i did some beds similar to yours but not nearly as well thought out. yours are awesome!

Falling_blue · « **Reply #41 on:** August 19, 2012, 03:09:32 PM »

My start to a few hugel rows.

lhunt · « **Reply #42 on:** August 19, 2012, 08:09:06 PM »

Falling_blue, that looks really good. I wish I would have made mine longer. My next one will be!

BTW, we've been in extreme/exceptional drought conditions here in central Indiana. We've been watering a few times a week though, but this HB has performed way better than the other six raised beds.

Falling_blue · « **Reply #43 on:** August 19, 2012, 08:26:19 PM »

I need more fresh compost to finish this row. It already looks a lot different with all the tall grass cut down around it and the overgrown row behind thinned out. Got the fall garden in what was in the pic and is going well. I am probably over watering at the moment but want to make sure the logs are soaking up water.

Nicodemus · « **Reply #44 on:** August 27, 2012, 07:56:36 AM »

Nice work, Falling_blue!

Falling_blue · « **Reply #45 on:** August 27, 2012, 11:12:15 AM »

The compost that I planted in is good seasoned horse manure and most everything is popping up. Didn't have good germination on the lettuces but it might have been too hot outside.

I haven't mulched yet but I think I will need to, even as much as I am watering, the top layer of the bed is pretty dry.

Also while watering I do notice some erosion so I tilled up around the bed and planted cover crops at the base and up a little on the sides.

Since the good manure is 45min away (but $5 a truck full!) and I now have access to a very close horse stable's pile, I filled in the rest of the bed with partially composted material. Just shoveling it in and out of my truck help the process a lot. My thought was that it would probably help break down the wood for next year's garden....and it might be ready for a winter cover crop. I turned a load I picked up last week with a tiller attachment on my weed eater and it got around the logs pretty well. I will add a pic later today of the progress

Falling_blue · « **Reply #46 on:** August 27, 2012, 06:31:46 PM »

Ericnb · « **Reply #47 on:** September 18, 2012, 05:33:56 PM »

Here is my Western style Hugelkultur bed. I have very limited space, (my back yard is a 34k swim pool) so I had to use a planter is the front yard. I kept the pigmy palm because the wife wants a tropical landscape. I basically dug down one foot and leveled the ground. I used season firewood, pine pieces I picked up a pallet making factory (free), tree trimmings, cardboard, and some shredded palm tree pieces. I then put the old topsoil on the cover everything. I found a place that boards horses and picked up free compost from the there and cover the planter about 5 inches deep. After two days I added some top soil I picked up at Home depot. The planter material cost was $14.00. Since then I planted a mango tree, sweet pepper, and Cabbage starter plants and a peace lily (for the wife). I'm going to be plant some Radish and Bell Pepper seeds but I have been waiting because it has been it the 90's the last two weeks.

what I started with.

Dug out before leveling

adding the wood

ready for the top soil

closeup of the compost

adding the compost

starting to plant

Nicodemus · « **Reply #48 on:** September 19, 2012, 05:16:41 PM »

Looking great, Falling_blue!

Very cool, Ericnb!

surfivor · « **Reply #49 on:** October 05, 2012, 02:26:51 AM »

I am wondering if I might have put down too much wood and not enough dirt. I think I tried to put down 18 inches of compost dirt on top of the wood, but it might have been less in some places. I got raspberries on one bed, some beds didn't do much yet, but I didn't try too hard, just threw some seeds on there. I may increase the amount of dirt in a couple of areas. It seems like other people have about as much dirt as I do though from some of the pictures .. I think I heard Sepp Holzer said people often use too much wood, any thoughts ?

Bubba Zinetti · « **Reply #50 on:** November 20, 2012, 03:21:53 PM »

If you look at Masanobu Fukuoka's work ('One Straw Revolution', etc.), he states that burying logs only removes Nitrogen from the soil, and that they take years to break down, during which time anything grown on the land will be less fruitful. Better to chip the wood and spread it over the area in order to help conserve water and feed the soil slowly. Go to any thriving forest. Are there buried logs? What there is is a litter of leaves and other organic material on top of the ground that encourages and maintains healthy soil development. Hope that helps.

lhunt · « **Reply #51 on:** November 20, 2012, 04:18:58 PM »

Quote from: Bubba Zinetti on November 20, 2012, 03:21:53 PM

If you look at Masanobu Fukuoka's work ('One Straw Revolution', etc.), he states that burying logs only removes Nitrogen from the soil, and that they take years to break down, during which time anything grown on the land will be less fruitful. Better to chip the wood and spread it over the area in order to help conserve water and feed the soil slowly. Go to any thriving forest. Are there buried logs? What there is is a litter of leaves and other organic material on top of the ground that encourages and maintains healthy soil development. Hope that helps.

yeah. argue that with sepp or paul. good luck.

OkieBoy · « **Reply #52 on:** January 02, 2013, 11:01:56 AM »

Very cool thread, y'all. I've been using extra soil from my basement ("My Tiny House" thread goes into detail) and have built a Sepp Holzer-inspired hugelkulture bed too.

Instead of digging I decided to build up. I eventually added logs past the location of the truck.

With some soil added.

More logs....

I later added composted horse manure, more soil, more debris and then threw some deer attractant mix on top to stabilize and add nitrogen via leguminous vegetation.

Nicodemus · « **Reply #53 on:** January 10, 2013, 07:58:06 AM »

Nice work, Okie!

CopperKnight · « **Reply #54 on:** January 10, 2013, 09:40:31 AM »

A question for y'all that have created these beds out of lawns. Do you have a problem with the grass creeping into the beds? My garden is cut from a corner of the lawn and I am constantly fighting the grass on the edges. I put down cardboard and pile on the dead leaves every fall, but by summer that stuff is rotted out (as it should be) and the grass comes back in force. I'm open to suggestions.

Roundabouts · « **Reply #55 on:** March 12, 2013, 09:37:22 AM »

Love all the ideas.

lhunt · « **Reply #56 on:** April 12, 2013, 08:13:35 PM »

Here's an update on my first raised bed and now another one i'm building that is bigger and has much more of a reservoir to hold water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDBB9ATGIzM

urban_dweller · « **Reply #57 on:** April 27, 2013, 10:38:56 PM »

This a keyhole garden I built. I apologize for the links but I can't figure out how to insert an image.

http://libertygarden.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Listen-to-the-Garden-4-27-2013-6-53-12-PM.jpg
http://libertygarden.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Keyhole-Garden-4-24-2013-5-37-32-PM.jpg

Coctailer · « **Reply #58 on:** May 01, 2013, 08:38:44 PM »

This thread is giving me great ideas!

urban_dweller · « **Reply #59 on:** May 04, 2013, 05:27:14 PM »

Here are more pictures on my garden experiment at http://libertygarden.us/.

Trunks for hugelbed
http://libertygarden.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/0517122014a.jpg

Hugelbed
http://libertygarden.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/0526121918.jpg

http://libertygarden.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/IMG_0966.jpg

Hugelbeds covered in dirt:

http://libertygarden.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/IMG_1120.jpg

Hugelbeds after 1 year:

http://libertygarden.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Keyhole-Garden-4-24-2013-5-45-59-PM.jpg

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Author Topic: Hugelkultur Bed Picture Thread (Read 12071 times)