Hügelkultur Raised Beds

[NanaK]

Fairly good results I’d say without putting them through a cold stratification period.

I'd say excellent results especially for such a short time. I have grown these from seed a couple times. I've always used the winter sow method. Very interesting to see yours germinate so rapidly without cold strat.

From my understanding, they won’t bloom until the second year, first year they put their energy into root growth.

This has been my experience here in zone 8a.

The first year they will slowly grow into a nice rosette of foliage. I have seen a small bloom or two late the first year but rarely.

The foliage can take a few light frost then completely die back to the ground for winter. As weather warms the following spring I see foliage then flowers. You should get nice full bloom that lasts quite a while.

They will reseed if you leave the flowers as they fade or you can collect mature seed to plant elsewhere.

These are one of my favorites. Also a favorite of bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. I have seen lots of gold finches on these also.

 

[akroberts1085]

My husband and I made a herb planter from a pocket planter on a pallet. I will post a picture in a bit.

 

[akroberts1085]

This is the pocket planter herb planter

 

[akroberts1085]

This is the second head of garlic I started in a jar of water. It had a blow out

 

[akroberts1085]

I managed to get some dandelions from the front yard and put them in the big pallet bed with the potatoes. I have some squash starting to peak through the soil.

 

[akroberts1085]

Gotta unload the 5 bags of soil I just bought and get some on the potatoes. I noticed that they are starting to come up so now I gotta get them hilled. I'm really hoping for a great crop of potatoes. I also bought some spaghetti squash and watermelon seeds for the garden.

 

[Land of Lincoln]

This has probably been posted already but I wanted to ask you all here. After you all have put whatever filler material at the bottom of your raised beds, what do you top it off with? I have 4-4x8 raised beds that I topped with a quality organic soil I purchased last fall.

Im wanting to make several more beds of various sizes because I really like not having to bend over as far to tend to the beds. A truckload of the organic soil I got is really good quality but with the amount of beds I’d like to make, the sheer volume of soil would get very expensive. I do make compost and have chicken manure I use after it’s aged a bit but it’s not nearly enough for the amount of beds I want to incorporate.

With 12 chickens and hot composting, there’s a fair amount of material on hand at the moment but once the additional beds are made, I’m sure that will deplete very quickly. What do you all use to fill beds?

 

[akroberts1085]

This has probably been posted already but I wanted to ask you all here. After you all have put whatever filler material at the bottom of your raised beds, what do you top it off with? I have 4-4x8 raised beds that I topped with a quality organic soil I purchased last fall.

Im wanting to make several more beds of various sizes because I really like not having to bend over as far to tend to the beds. A truckload of the organic soil I got is really good quality but with the amount of beds I’d like to make, the sheer volume of soil would get very expensive. I do make compost and have chicken manure I use after it’s aged a bit but it’s not nearly enough for the amount of beds I want to incorporate.

With 12 chickens and hot composting, there’s a fair amount of material on hand at the moment but once the additional beds are made, I’m sure that will deplete very quickly. What do you all use to fill beds?

In winter you can put the hot compost in the beds and cover them with black plastic to get it to break down faster. Also if you need to top it off from one season to the next, you can use a half and half mix of top soil and compost.