Growing In The Garden, Bluefy Woofy, Hugelkulture! Part II

Hugelkulture, one of MANY methods of growing and gardening. In essence, it tries to emulate nature, and natural processes, found in forests, and wooded areas.

I talked at some length, about my own Container Gardening in Fabric Grow Bags of ALL sizes. I discussed my own soil, composting, and fertilizing. If I wasn't planning on moving in a year, or two, I would definitely be cultivating in Raised Beds! Us Old Mansy-types need all the help we can get. I can bend down, easy enough, but, getting it up again is another issue, altogether!

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Let's LOOK at that image again:

The above Raised Bed, is about 24 inches tall, and 3 foot wide, 8 foot long. (About 2/3 meter tall, meter wide, 2 and a half meters long). That is a LOT of soil to fill. AND, many gardeners have more than one. THAT is a LOT of soil to fill. Heading down to the Garden Store, and BUYING all that soil is expensive. AND, not a great long term solution.

Is There A Better Way?

Yes, indeedy, do!

Here's how to cost effectively fill your raised beds, AND it has the Benefit, of being BEST Practice, for fertile growing: Hugelkulture!

At it's most basic, Hugelkulture is a centuries old tradition, that builds gardens, applying nature's own recipe. In forests and wooded areas, the soil is rich, with lots of hummus, detritus, and other organic matter. No one cleans the forest floor of dead leaves, tree limbs, twigs, and other matter. Well, no human does. When stuff falls, the organisms in nature breakdown the woody materiel, into rich, organic soil. Using that premise, we see this:

When someone builds a Raised Garden Bed, the usually are putting it over top of some grass. So,

• FIRST, lay down cardboard. This acts as a weed barrier, and kills the grass below.
• NEXT, in that bottom layer (pic above), in the area of the Black Arrow, fill the bottom with tree limbs, large sticks, small twigs, dead leaves, and other soil, to fill the air gaps. Try not to leave any air gaps.
• NEXT, in the middle, the area of the Red Arrow, fill with some soil, dirt, and compost.
• NEXT, top area, the Blue Arrow, fill with a good quality Compost, and mix in some worm castings, and maybe some organic slow release granular fertilizer, bone meal and blood meal (animals die in forests), and wait. Give the Raised Bed a week or two to settle, before planting.

OVER TIME, the woody logs, limbs, and sticks will break down, and produce a rich, woody fill that helps retain water, and releases many nutrients back to the soil. Plants will send their roots down deep, searching for many of these rich nutrients, creating a healthier plant.

Hugelkulture works, because, it is simply nature, doing it's thing.
I find it is a cost effective method of creating and sustaining LARGE beds, over time, in a fertile way.

Both of these images are from a gardening site I belong to, and used with permission of the owners.

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In the coming days, my posts will explain what the different types of gardening are (container, raised beds, in-ground), and the methods gardeners use (no till, square foot, hydroponics,HugelKulture, etc) to get their gardens to grow. we'll talk pros and cons, and maybe even touch on costs, labor, etc.

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