permaculture

[Michael Pilarski <friendsofthetrees@yahoo.com>]

Hi Miekal,

My eggplant hugelkultur was small. I dug a trench about 1 foot deep (to 
supply soil to top off the hugelkultur). 8 feet long and 3 feet high.  I put 
a lot of manure in with the woody material.  Hugelkulturs may not perform 
well the first year or couple of years if you don't add a good slug of 
nitrogen material.

As far as using hugelkulturs in erosion areas.  If in a gully you would have 
to key in the woody material into the banks (very well) so they can't wash 
out. the woody debris keyed into banks is a common erosion control technique. 
 but it doesn't make sense to make it a yummy growing situation with soil on 
top, because the next flood event will wash off all the fines and the plants. 
 You can put in woody cutting material though that will deeply root and 
reinforce the structure.  Look at Bioengineering books for the specs on these 
techniques.  The classic is "Bioengineering" by Hugo Schiectl.

Yer old friend,

Michael Pilarski

--- On Fri, 9/9/11, mIEKAL aND <qazingulaza@gmail.com> wrote:

From: mIEKAL aND <qazingulaza@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Some other big Hugelkulturs.
To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Friday, September 9, 2011, 5:43 AM

Skeeter, what was the dimensions of your eggplant hugelkultur?

Also wondering if one could build these in existing erosion gullies if
one addressed the erosion at the same time.  I'm trying my damndest to
keep big machinery off my new vineyard but it would be fun to
integrate this into some of the areas in the bottomlands where years
of cattle pasturing has created some erosion issues.

~mIEKAL




  I just built one last month and it is already bearing eggplants. The
concept works at many scales.
>
> Michael Pilarski
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