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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Hugel bed, different application

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  • From: Pego Rice <firekeeper38@yahoo.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Hugel bed, different application
  • Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 22:55:33 -0700 (PDT)

Hi Harvey
 
The naysayer was prolly me.  I had accidentally implemented this in a half-a---ed way and found my nitrogen levels being sucked out. My first shot at gardening again was a mess. When I found out about hugel beds and how they work I understood why that had happened. That is about the time I commented here about it, as the info was filtering in for what parts I had not known to put in.  
 
I am actually doing them again.  With better info I suspect I will be seeing better early results.  I did, after all, eventually get some reasonable results from my 1st mess.  I am also now prepared for the wild changes in bed volume so I know to only plant annuals in places where the level is important and needs regular topping off.
 
When you read through about changes in the depth of the beds they are really not joking and that caused me a big, big hassle the 1st time, since my primary reason for chucking so many things (like big chunks of firewood) under the beds had been to raise the growing areas up to where I could still garden, in spite of my back and knee issues.  Having that volume disappear on me.  Ack! 
 
Heh,  It's like anything else, tho, if you know a change will come you can be prepared for the advantages and neutralize the disadvantages.   The jump-start on mycelium that the rotten wood brings in can't be beat.  Volume is easy to fix.
 
Yours, Pego

<<Couple of years ago there were a few posts about "hugel beds". They
piqued my interest because of the inclusion of woody reclamation
materials like prunings that are the composter's bane. But then someone
said (s)he had tried the technique, and it hadn't worked out so well,
and I lost interest.

But the concept stayed in my mind. Now I'm experimenting with the
concept, though not in garden beds. I'm getting increasingly interested
in complex organic debris fields for both reclaiming "wastes" (we gotta
come up with an alternative term--Nature sure doesn't know the meaning
of the word) and feeding my poultry. I've done some experiments with all
sorts of materials you'd use to make compost heaps, in order to achieve
both chicken-powered composting, and feeding opportunities for the
flock. [See "The Lazy Gardener's Compost Heap" at
http://themodernhomestead.us/article/Composter+Chickens.html  ]>>




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