An innocent start to the year. It all began with some herbs a few zucchini and tomatoes
Big changes are afoot, August saw the addition of a hugelkultur bed by the patio. Beneath the bark mulch lie two shallow trenches (maybe 12" to 18" deep?) with young cypress that were cut down next door. On top of the trenches is a light sheet mulch with manure, cardboard, an inch or two of yard waste and the bark on top. Now, how do I keep these furry garden pests from destroying too much?
The "hugelbed" in January 2009. Planted with garlic, thyme, brown arrow lettuce (outside the photo frame) and some ornamental annuals that stuck around. It doesn't get very much sun right now (a couple hours at best) but the plants seem to be doing well, except for the lantanas which had to be moved to sunnier pasture. In the background you can see the main garden taking shape. Somehow, I trained the dogs to stay out of the hugelbed (so far anyway), yet they continually find ways to get into The Lab and dig!
January 2009 Work in progress (isn't it always!). This is "The Lab", my main garden. I am trying different experiments within The Lab areas. A biointensive bed lies beneath the clover and other cover crops. Off to the left is a section that I am reserving as my "what would nature do" plot in which I simply try to mimic nature's patterns in my garden. I intend to pattern it off of the edge between a forest and meadow, in which plants are kept down by "grazing", mulched by leaves and other forest debris and receive the occasional deposits from "flooding" (i.e. composting) in my little ecosystem. I intend not to till that area if at all possible. Should be interesting. Oh! And right next to the compost bin I am trying to cultivate mushrooms (Hypsizygus ulmarius "Garden Patch")! I hope it works.
My first soil blocks to start out the new year. Can't wait to see what this year holds!
Good post and interesting! For anyone else who needed a definition like me:
(Wikipedia) Hugelkulture is the process of composting large woody material and at the same time creating a beneficial raised gardenbed.
Ah yes, I have started the first few posts of this blog by throwing a bunch of unexplained stuff out there like sheet mulching and hugelkultur. Hugelkultur is starting to be implemented more frequently here in the states (I’m guessing this is due to the increasing number of Gaia’s Garden readers). Even as little as a year ago I tried doing a search on it and found very little. I just tried now and got quite a few hits and resources. Crazy!
For those curious about hugelkultur methods, there are a different implementations. One is when you grab a bunch of woody material, pile it up and throw dirt on top of it. A nice little post on that method can be found here: http://www.beardsleyfarm.com/2008/12/hugelkultur.html
The method I used was filling trenches with woody material and covering it over. Here is a GREAT site showing details of their implementation and with nice before and after pictures to show the contrast http://home.att.net/~ekyorigins/Hugelkulture.html
Cheers