Hugelkultur Raised Beds: it’s the fancy German word that plays into permaculture. When Kirk and I took a class on permaculture last year, I planned to incorporate the practice into rebuilding parts of our homestead gardens. Then I hurt my arm and sat out the summer. Then…we moved.
As spring turned into summer, and I started building my raised bed garden, adding many more raised beds, I knew I needed to think it over more deeply. Soil isn’t cheap.
For example. I finally found great bed soil locally, from a Mennonite Nursery across the river, in Maryland.
The soil is $4.99 a bag – it;s heavy in weight, and I would guess is a cubic foot bag each. Price wise that is good compared to the “garden soils” sold at big box stores.
It is a blend of screened topsoil, leaf matter, and mushroom compost. It smells good, not how often “garden soil” smells (usually heavy in animal matter).
It’s on the right, next to the other garden soil. It is a fine soil.
I filled the first two raised beds with bagged soil so I could build a herb bed and one for strawberries. For the third bed, I needed to do it quickly, so I added a thick layer of chipped wood and dried leaves. Then piled in the soil.
The clumps are mushroom compost. The bed was done, but I definitely had to spend far too much to get it ready. An 8 ft by 4 ft by 1 ft bed will take over one cubic yard of soil. This soil by the yard is $58. It’s worth it, though.
It will become the raspberry bed next year on both sides. For the fall, I transplanted a dual-crop red variety that I had been growing. They don’t require caning. Next spring I will add more red and also golden dual crop.
For now, I planted a couple of rows of Patio Pride Peas, which are bush, so they will grow fast. I will transplant my lettuce starts in a week or two.
With so many beds to prepare for next year and so many trees to trim, I put that to work. Save money and have healthy soil.
We trimmed all the branches we cut down (the trees here hadn’t been pruned in many years, and some were in terrible shape). It’s work we can do in the shade and isn’t physically taxing, just tiring from using loppers constantly. We used our chipper to process many branches, but the minor items that the chipper doesn’t like often get jammed.
Haul them to the beds and spread out.
I am filling the beds to the top with the cut branches and leaves. Then I will place the trimmed logs on top to compress them. With rain, the wood matter will break down over the fall and winter seasons. I will also be adding lawn trimmings on top.
Once we have the beds filled and fully prepared, I will purchase the garden mix soil to add to the top, allowing the wood to break down more effectively.
So, as always, it’s a work in progress.I will talk about it more in the coming months.
Now then, is it true Hugelkultur? Not quite. But that is the best part of gardening…You can do what works for YOU. My beds won’t be mounded up and high. They will be in pretty, standardized-sized raised beds. They will look just like they were filled with 100% ready-to-use soil. But I will have a vested interest in it. I oddly took that away from our Permaculture class. Use the principles and make it work for you. Perhaps that isn’t exactly what was being taught, but then my mind has always worked a bit differently.
~Sarah
