Hügelkultur Raised Beds

[gtaus]

as far as planting go out and put some potholes in there , you know , couple gallons planting soil and seeds ..gallon , half gallon , quart , pint .. i like fancy gourds squash is good...

I made some potholes in one place at another location and planted some of my extra zucchini in it. I am still dumping grass clippings on that hügelkultur mound but think I'll fill up a pothole or two and plant some type of squash there as well. The mounds in that picture are just not in a very sunny spot, so I started with the other location first which gets full sun.

I have on old bucket that leaks, so I am thinking about just cutting out the bottom and putting that into all that grass. The plastic from the bucket should keep the soil from washing away in a rain. I don't have enough topsoil to cover the entire mound, but I could easily fill up a number of (bottomless) old planters or buckets and stick them in the mound.

 

[old commando]

time will make good soil do not worry about covering the whole thing , just a little bit here and there , i would not use any plastic , just stuff that will degrade over time , even steel and iron will degrade over time ,, look at the soil , feel it smell it taste it , look for worms and bugs , then use that to inoculate further , lots shade plants available , maybe tomorro i can name you one pile that brush up add the yard clippings , maybe leaves in the fall , then maybe a burn, the ash is a good product ,,reference the soil washing away forego the plastic if and when the soil washes away get your shovel look to the bottom of the pile , there lies the good stuff , shovel some up ... i might be right , but i might be wrong

 

[gtaus]

time will make good soil do not worry about covering the whole thing , just a little bit here and there , i would not use any plastic , just stuff that will degrade over time

Yeah, no desire to cover the whole mound with topsoil at this time. My six-foot-tall mound of branches has already compacted to about five feet tall with all the heavy grass clippings I have dumped on it. I think some grass clippings will be enough and then maybe plant something in it.

I was thinking of the plastic to hold some soil together because I have a couple of leaky containers that would work, or they will just end up in the landfill anyway. I just don't think my soil would last very long in the mound unless I was able to confine it. I was concerned that the soil would wash away because of all the air gaps in the mound of branches.

But maybe I'm overthinking the whole thing.

Where I did plant some of my extra zucchini was in a raised bed topped and off and filled with about 8 inches of leaves and grass clippings. I just dug pockets in the grass and leaves, dumped soil in that hole, and planted some zucchini starts in it. If the plants grow, or not, is up to nature at this time. It's my hands off experiment this year.

 

[old commando]

cardboard works good , degrades and returns to the earth in time and i guess we all got plenty cardboard boxes shipped in i think cardboard planters in a brush pile would be a very good thing , perhaps a little unsightly but ;;
i wanted to get all the cardboard shipping boxes came in here , load them with chipped up leaves [ i got plenty them] build a big pile them , placard it ,, this years shipping boxes ,,,watch it rot aka return to the earth , wife did not think that such a good idea and i need help executing that plan

 

[old commando]

ya go ahead , use them plastic buckets , you are the man in charge , but be advised some those plastics work out ok but some them are very bad news ,, i have plastic planters here just break into tiny flinters when i try to pick them up , and plastic ropes that are real hell on earth after weathering ,, lots tiny sharp shards stick in your hand , when i detect them i treat them as hazardous material ,, i wish i knew the difference .. some those plastic seem satisfactory on the long haul ,, some not therefore being unable to specify the difference i suggest the earth friendly way ,,, cardboard boxes

 

[gtaus]

Update on planting into the hügelkultur mound with tons of grass clipping dumped on the pile...

I think squash or beans would do very well! When I've pulled the plants up at the end of the season, the roots are nearly all horizontal, spreading out, and not very deep.

i like fancy gourds squash is good

ya go ahead , use them plastic buckets

Well, I ended up just creating a cavity in the grass clippings on top of that mound and put a couple shovels full of fresh compost in the hole. I had some extra Acorn Squash plants that were looking for a place to grow, so I planted them in that mound. I'll just have to see if it grows or not, my biggest concern is that it is mostly shade all day.

Taking a few step backwards, here is a picture of that 6-foot-tall mound that is now about 5-feet-tall because the weight of all those grass clippings has compressed the pile...

Well, I don't know if anything will grow in a couple of shovel scoops of fresh compost, but I'll just give it a try as an experiment.

 

[Land of Lincoln]

It’s been a long time since I posted on here but I wanted to share my hugelkultur beds and how things are growing in them. My first time with raised beds and the hugelkultur method.



This bed has quite a few things in it. 2 varieties of lettuce, 2 varieties of carrots, 2 varieties of beets, and a few onions strewn in here and there. This bed has really exploded in the last couple of weeks.



This bed has garlic on one end and 2 varieties of onions on the other - things are growing great here and it’s almost time to harvest the garlic. I planted the garlic last November.



This bed here you can hardly even see. I have yellow squash on one side, zucchini on the other side and bush beans down the middle - this bed looks like a jungle showed up. It’s just overgrown like mad.



4th bed is filled with 2 varieties of bell peppers, jalapeños, cayenne & fire & ice peppers. This bed is growing pretty well also. I’ve added woodchip mulch around the plants in this bed & it has really suppressed the weeds more than the other 3 beds that I haven’t mulched.

All in all, as of now, I really like this raised beds and this hugelkultur method. Things are growing really well in them. I’m anxious to see the harvests I get from each of them.

I’ve already had several salads from the lettuce bed and they just keep coming back.

I really over planted each bed to the gills just to see how things would do and I had the seeds so in they went. The zucchini are popping now and I’ve got several growing, picked one last night to grill and was delicious.

I’ve already got plans to add more raised beds so I just need to figure out how and where to place them.

So far, so good and glad I found this thread last fall. Things are looking good so far.

Hope you all are having gardening success.

 

[gtaus]

It’s been a long time since I posted on here but I wanted to share my hugelkultur beds and how things are growing in them. My first time with raised beds and the hugelkultur method.

That raised bed looks amazing. You must really have a green thumb.

Years ago, when the cost of lumber went through the roof, I built some raised beds using that same type of galvanized steel panel. My galvanized steel panel raised beds are 4X4 feet and only 16 inches high. I used some repurposed 2X4 to make frames for the side panels and I had some 4X4's left over from another project that I used as my corner posts. I wanted the smaller beds for my new location in the backyard. Those steel beds should probably last me a lifetime.

Here is a picture a few years ago of one those galvanized steel panel raised beds I made...

That was also probably my first hügelkultur raised bed build. The bed is doing well, and as I expected, I think it has been getting better every year. I built everything from scratch, having to cut the steel panels to fit, but I saved a lot of money compared to an all-wood design.

Then I got into pallet projects a few years ago and have since built another 8 pallet wood raised beds...

It costs me less than $2.00 per 4X4 foot raised bed. All the pallet wood was free. All I had to buy was the screws and nails used to put everything together. Over the past 3 years, I have increased my raised bed gardening by 3X using free pallet wood.

At first, I tried using the Square Foot Gardening method of plant spacing in my raised beds, but I found that my plants grew too much and became overcrowded. I suspect my chicken run compost had something to do with all that explosive growth. I'm not a great gardener, don't know much about pruning and thinning, and I think my plants suffered from being too crowded. I now have most of my plants spaced out more than typically suggested in the Square Foot Gardening tables. But it works better for me.

I suspect my true gardening talent is in building the raised beds, filling them with hügelkultur wood, and setting them up for planting. After that, I just need to get lucky with plants that can survive my lack of actual gardening skills.

Dear Wife has the green thumb in our family, but she is only interested in flower gardens. So, I am left to figure out things on my own with the veggie raised bed gardens. Still, whatever veggies I do manage to grow, we enjoy a lot.

 

[Land of Lincoln]

Your pallet beds look fantastic, I like that look. I plan on making some now that I’ve kind’ve got an idea thanks to all of your wonderful pictures. I have access to a lot of pallets at my work and some other places around here so there’s a good supply of those. Pretty much just up to the imagination of how to construct them. Will be a good project to keep me busy.

Kudos to you and your beds, that’s great!

 

[gtaus]

Your pallet beds look fantastic, I like that look. I plan on making some now that I’ve kind’ve got an idea thanks to all of your wonderful pictures. I have access to a lot of pallets at my work and some other places around here so there’s a good supply of those. Pretty much just up to the imagination of how to construct them. Will be a good project to keep me busy.

Exactly, it's a good hobby for me at my age. Keeps me active and out of other trouble. I like working with pallet wood because I can custom make my raised beds, or planters, to any size or height I want.

I have made a number of pallet wood flower planters for Dear Wife, all different sizes depending on what she wants. And if a project does not work out, I don't mind because I probably enjoyed building it. It's not a big deal for me to reuse that pallet wood in another project if I have to.

I still use the hügelkultur method of filling the flower planters. I think the hügelkultur filler wood will function like a giant water battery reservoir compared to just letting all the water drain out. The same principles should apply to a smaller flower planter filled with wood the same as my larger garden raised beds.