Hügelkultur

[raymondo]

I'm in the process of reclaiming a disused bed and though I would try this approach to building soil carbon. I'd be keen to hear if anyone has tried this - a quick description.

[orflo]

I didn't try this the way it is described here, because of the carbon losses during the first years. I have a big pile of small wood branches in the back of the garden, and this slowly turns into very useful soil, which is loved by the stinging nettles underneath ;D ;D. These nettles do speed up this sort of composting process, so I just leave them there, and it's a very awkward job to move this sort of pile, with just about every branch breaking into pieces....
This soil is very fertile and very black, I use it mainly as a soil for pots, but that's because I just don't have enough of it to use it in the garden as well.

Also check the work of Jean Pain, this is another variation of the use of wood, there's a thread here somewhere

[ottawagardener]

I have intentions on doing this but haven't had access to chunks of wood previous. Off to check out Jean Pain.

[stevil]

I did something similar years ago when making a couple of new perennial beds. I don't have much soil in my garden - no more than 10-20 cm in many places. I had access to a lot of twigs, too small to burn. I therefore made new raised beds by first putting a layer of twigs over the rock , then a layer of inverted turfs (from the surface) and finally the soil on top. The plants growing on these beds have always looked vigorous and there have been no signs of nitrogen deficiency.

After a while this bed had an interesting feature as the well known fungus Phallus impudicus (Common Stinkhorn, picture below) found these conditions to its liking and colonised this bed! This was a a mini-sensation in my area as this fungus had only been found one other place! When people visited the garden I would start by explaining why there was such a strong smell - it's not me, it's not rotting compost and then I would show them the culprit (to much amusement) and explained that it fitted well with my edible garden as it is actually edible when young (but don't confuse it with some of the poisonous Amanitas that look similar at an early stage).

...and (sorry for this) no, I haven't personally eaten Phallus (I will one of these days, though.....)

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[ottawagardener]

I didn't realize that you had such thin soil. The other day when researching this technique, I thought about how useful it would be especially in places where the soil is thin and poor but there is lots of wood available.

So far, I have only noticed nutrient deficiency in one spot in my garden beds and those were near the feeder roots of a very large littleleaf linden. I haven't yet observed it when making new beds becaues of C:N imbalances. Perhaps the mixture of fresh sod, soil and wood offset it sufficiently.

Beds I've planted over old roots have always done well though they are difficult to dig around as I keep dinging wood.

I did hear that stinkhorns were edible at the egg stage. The description didn't sound very appealing. I wonder what treats might pop up from composting wood beyond Phalluses of course.

[coppice]

When I've had a very sandy soil this works to preserve moisture once woody parts have rotted some. Some claims of holding an entire summers worth of drouth are exagerated.

It helps, it aint a cure-all.

You will end up with very obvious raised beds that will impead mechanical harvest.

[stevil]

Jan 25, 2011 6:41:43 GMT -5 ottawagardener said:

Beds I've planted over old roots have always done well though they are difficult to dig around as I keep dinging wood.

The shallow soil does mean that competition with tree roots is a problem, but it does also mean that I can without too much effort dig trenches down to bedrock to keep roots out if I want....It always amazes me how large trees can grow on almost no soil!

The name of my house (inherited) is Bergstua which literally means "house on the rock"

[castanea]

Another thread on it:

alanbishop.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=alt&action=display&thread=4501

[heidihi]

I have a spot in my yard I really want to try this in ..and plenty of sticks twigs and wood (I have two piles of wood one for smoking and one for something else ..this sounds like the something else!) but I am wondering what would be considered "allelopathic" wood besides the cedar and walnut?

I have no idea! thanks

[Alan]

Theres some excellent videos on youtube via Sepp Holtzer on this method. Guy has some great ideas, even though he is using large equipment to get the job done, it could be adapted to a small scale easily.

To some extent I have been doing it in our lumber lot at the back of the property. An area that was open field 30 years ago that grew into brush and fairly worthless and twisted up trees of cherry, tulip poplar, walnut, and cedar. I cut the cedar posts which were used in the peasant barn and for the trellis and now the root cellar among other projects, the smaller poplar became posts for inside the barn, and the larger trees of various species became fire wood.

I'm clearing it to broth improve the health of the forrest surrounding this spot as well as to open the field back up first to annual agriculture and then to perrinial fruiting trees and bushes and for the eventual site of a small portable sawmill w/barn and hopefully a house for Kim and I.

On the margins I pushed up large brush piles made of small cut up branches via tree tops, I toyed with burning them once, but after noticing the number of bees and other pollinators frequenting these piles I decided to leave them, besides I'm not done cutting wood there yet since it's a multi year project and they aren't in the way. I figure I'll leave them until I am done, then burn what's left, this should give some excellent soil for a future investment.

They are also keen attractors of rabbits and squirrels, helping to feed my rodent eating habbit all winter long!

[steev]

Buried rotting wood is a preferred habitat for shaggymanes, Coprinus comatus.

[raymondo]

I started a new bed today using the hügelkultur idea. I don't have large bits of timber but I do have plenty of small branches and crushed wood mulch. I am proceeding as follows:

• Mark out the bed - it's 1m wide and about 15m long.
  
• Lift the sod and stack it to one side. The sod is full of the two worst grasses we have here - couch and kikuyu - so I'll compost it before putting it back.
  
• Loosen the newly exposed clay to a fork's depth and toss it onto a tarpaulin.
  
• Spread plenty of gypsum, throw in branches and a good layer of the crushed wood mulch, sprinkle liberally with blood and bone, water well.
  
• Put clay back on top, more gypsum and finally cover with a layer of the mulch. Water it to settle the dust.
  

I did two metres and was knackered. It'll take me a while. I'm no spring chicken. I'm planning on using it for corn so I have until November to finish it.
I guess it's not really hügelkultur but I'm hoping that the bed will end up with lovely friable soil fairly quickly given that a good layer of clay is now sandwiched between woody mulch.

[12540dumont]

Raymundo, We've done something like this, but to it we added bone char. Every time we have a bbq, I throw the bones from what ever meat we had before in the coals. We bag them up all year and throw them in with the sticks, in my case, the corn stalks, and tree trimmings. We've been stacking these for several years in a very long, low spot. About 150' x 3' (Now it's a high spot). This year and last year I've been throwing the weeds on top of it. It makes me tired to even think of turning this pile. Spring Chick though I am....

Don't know what it will be yet. I'm thinking of capers.

[raymondo]

Hmmm...bone char. Been wondering how I could best use bones. Can't put them in the compost because of foxes and rats so I've been tossing them out. While I'm making this new bed though I can bury them deep enough to at least stop the rats. Not sure about foxes. But saving them for bbq time might be just the ticket. Thanks for the idea.

[MikeH]

Jul 24, 2011 6:12:22 GMT -5 raymondo said:

I guess it's not really hügelkultur but I'm hoping that the bed will end up with lovely friable soil fairly quickly given that a good layer of clay is now sandwiched between woody mulch.

Regardless of whether or not it's hugelkultur, it will work. We prepare our new raised beds by tossing in whatever uncomposted vegetative matter we have which means we pay no attention to the C/N balance. Unwelcome volunteers from seeds in the material have never been a problem. I think they rot because of the amount of water we use. If we have big branches, they go on the bottom. If we have a lot of branches, they go through the wood chipper up to 3 inches in diameter. Each spring, we rake some the wild-ish parts of our property to collect the remains of last year's goldenrod, Queen Anne's Lace, dock, etc. We run it through the lawnmower to chew it up since smaller pieces compost faster. If we're a bit short of material, we'll get partially rotted straw from a farmer. He's happy to get rid of it. We put in through the lawnmower as well. Everything gets a lot of water and gets stamped down to compact it. This reduces the amount of topping up required later. Regardless of the time of year that we do this, all of the vegetative material is gone within 6 months except for the larger branches and they're at the bottom so they aren't a problem. We can use the beds immediately even though things haven't composted by planting into pockets of compost. By the time the roots start reaching out, the uncomposted material has started to break down. Our raised beds all have black, very friable, very rich soil in them. We mulch heavily with green grass clippings to keep moisture in and weeds out. After the growing season, this gets turned in gently. Gently because we always seem to get large numbers of earth worms that I don't want to damage by careless digging. Easy peasy and cheap.

Mike