I have been doing this method for decades. Long before I knew it was a thing. It works absolutely amazingly. The soil gets better and better every year and the biological activity and microorganism density is insane.
I used this concept on a much smaller scale last fall to fill up Rubbermaid storage containers that my neighbor gave me. We were trimming back an Althea (Rose of Sharon) bush and I took advantage of all those sticks and trimmings. Imagine my surprise this spring when dozens of Althea babies began sprouting in my containers among the carrots and onions!
Ohhh... I have come to hate Rose of Sharon with the fire of 1000 suns. My neighbors on both sides have it and it's old enough to be the original, non-sterile varieties. Every spring I'm pulling out THOUSANDS of seedlings. If a seedling hides from me then I'm pulling out a young tree.
We've been making a "lazy" hüglekultur bed for a couple of years now because our neighbor's linden tree is slowly dying and drops branches into our yard with every storm. So we've just piled them into a pyramid and tossed clippings, etc. on top of them. It looks like it's aged enough that it's about ready for something to go in it. Might try a squash this year.
Jacque, this was an awesome video about Hugelkutur gardening. The best of the many videos I've seen on Hugelkutur gardening over ten years on UTube.. Congratulations and thank you. You're a great teacher. Liz
How wonderful! This kind of reminds me of this quote about planting trees: “the true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit” You’re helping your own garden but think of how rich the soil will be in a few decades for the next person to benefit from!
I used this method in my raised beds before i even knew it was a thing, it just made sense to me. I didnt quite use large logs but i filled half my raised beds with old leaves and lilac bush trimmings. Its been 2 years and everything is dirt now
$0 DIY Raised Bed Method Hügelkultur. Great title. I sub here but others that don't may miss this valuable video. Looking forward to more great videos Jacques.
I like to add kitchen scraps and lawn trimmings with the wood at the bottom. I feel it attracts insects and bacteria quicker - also works to heat up the bed a bit, i planted 3 months after preparing my bed and couple inches down it was warm to the touch in the middle of the bed and worked great for some crops.
Apply the principle and use it in your "pots". Even by amending my soil, I'm putting small dried twigs at the bottom of the pot to help give it air, space, and something for the roots to latch onto when/if they get to the bottom.
I loved my Hugel beds. I had them for about 12 years until they were wiped out during the flood of 2019. They were a great way to a variety of crops with flowers helping with pollination. If you can find the space, materials and time to build these, by all means do. Many HOAs and townships are not allowing these in yards because of a "Lack of uniformity" and an eyesore. Please check to see if you can build these in your yard.
I started a Hügelbeet just about a month before you posted this video, and it's basically exactly what you did - except I didn't have the idea of using wheat to cover the hill. Now, after two months occasional watering during dry spells in-between heavy rains, it's starting to show that where there's no plant to hold the soil in place, the mound is starting to fall out of shape.
I threw in a 5-7 year old log into a very large stainless steel planter. I threw soil conditioner on top of the log and a toooon of potting soil on top. I planted my tomatoes and peppers in here. I’m hoping for the best!!!
I've just built a raised bed out of a collapsed metal shed and reused wood and an currently filling many many wheelbarrows full of logs, branches, twigs, leaves, rabbit droppings etc hoping it works well as I'm in almeria area Spain as we've had no substantial rain for over a year 😔 P.s.if u ever fancy a garden makeover episode and a holiday to Spain...... I can definitely help with that 😁🙏🙏😅
Wow... talk about a great experiment. Sure, I've heard about it for years, but seeing it really brings is home. That really does act as a moisture sink. I'm sold
I made a hugelkultur in my back yard a few years ago. Made a video digging in at the two year mark. I was expecting moist soil but it was still poorer quality, very dry soil, worse than all the yummy soil snacks I added at the build. My hypothesis is that because we were in a drought for years 1-2 (and 3) of the hugel, there was not enough moisture for the bed to retain in the first place. I did hand water, I had to, but nothing is as effective as a soaking rain, in my experience. This summer would be year 4 of the hugel, I should dig again and see if the bed quality has improved at all. I will say that even though it hasn't met my expectations, it does grow food, I still plant on it, so it has value. Great video, very helpful, I hope more people try a hugel. Still glad I tried it. If I had room, I would do another, just to get rid of the yard waste.
You and Kevin are awesome! Total rookie here, so, dumb question alert! 1, would it make sense to pre-soak the old spongy wood before hand?? And #2, would it make sense to put worms in the last layer prior to the green leafy plant trimmings, just above the wood and dirt?? Thanks so much!
Appreciate you digging up your hugelkultur bed so we can witness what's happening. Its essentially wrecked the delicate ecosystem that's developing in there over the season. Surprised there arent' a ton of worms though.
We had a huge jungle of apple, fig, and ceanothus branches to get rid of and used this method in our raised beds last year. Its amazing how fast that all breaks down. And it was so easy to turn the beds this year. I think the pet rats' beddingade the veg extra spicy😂
I have heard that hugelkultur doesn't work as well in the actual tropics since things break down so much faster than in other climates. So it ends up being less work to just add compost for fertilization (I don't live in the tropics though, so hugelkultur works great for me!)
hi jacques 🤗 thanks for sharing more great info. excellent explanations and demo. ill definitely head over to your channel for the follow-up video. tfs
I'm doing a simplified/partial version of this in my Birdies raised bed. I have a bunch of brush that's been sitting in a pile in my backyard so I figure I can use some of that.
This is all great information! We have done something similar, but we can’t keep the grass and weeds from growing on top of it. What is your solution from that happening to your mound?
So cool 🙌 I need to do this. We have a decently large wooded property, so there are always decaying trees around if we go looking. I’m guessing that sod we lift to expand flower beds would also be good to add? I used some in the bottom of some huge pots to cut down on container soil.
I have sandy soil, probably 70% sand, would this method work or would I need to add a landscape material below the logs to retain as much good soil I would be adding?
This was very interesting and informative. We had a bunch of tree limbs come down a few months ago after a heavy wind storm, we have them in our burn pile. We have 2+ acres in Houston. Can the wood ash be used in this type of Hugelkultur? Thank you, I always learn a lot from Jacques!!
I love your videos! They are very informative! I have one question. I did a hugulkultur bed but now is full of red ants, big ants. 😢what should I do? I put some diometacious earth, but when i spray water or work on the bed they surface by the 100's.😢😢 I live in central Florida and the heat is craa!zy, you water and water just runs thru!😢😢 any advice will really be appreciated. ❤
I'm hoping to build a couple of raised beds this autumn/winter, and want to put wood in the bottom. But my question is: how big a concern are termites? I can't imagine that being buried under a foot or two of dirt would kill them. I don't have any wood of my own, so I was thinking I could probably check for free stuff...But I also don't want to bring pests in! For reference, im in central Texas. I just attended a compost workshop last weekend, and one of the other participants said when he stopped for free mulch, a city employee even told him there was a good chance it had termites. 😬
There are termites in the soil, so you are correct that being buried isn't going to kill them. That said, the general advice is, yes, there's a possibility that your hugelkultur bed will become a termite buffet. HOWEVER, they are part of the process of breaking down the wood, so they're beneficial that way. Just build your bed as far away from your house as possible and monitor closely for anything moving towards your house.
The tree of liberty is........well, my lawyer says I shouldn't finish that statement. Also the fact that EG liked this post says amazing things about Epic.
I tried this years ago and had really bad luck with it, turns out if you put bug infested logs under your garden the bugs will eat the roots of your plants so be careful what logs you put in!
thanks, Jacques. I have lots of invasive Holly that I'd like to cut down and repurpose, but don't want to essentially just "plant" them in a hugel mound. Is there any danger of Holly logs sprouting under the mound? Thanks.
I’m a very beginning gardener so forgive this question but I’m curious if I can use grass clippings as part of the materials used for building the mound?
thats not Hügelkultur LOL. That too small (but reaaaaaaally too small) to get any of the beneficial from Hügelkultur. You have to build a small hill and plant in that shit, git gud noob!
My grandpa was born in Germany around the turn of the last century. Placement! He had them run along the hill to capture the water to make a series of terraces. He dug the ditch like you did, then he built a fire in the ditch. That followed by punky wood that was no longer good for burning (like 2 yr old firewood), leafy stuff/field cuttings/compost, then we kids poured on buckets of water (old school), ... repeat with medium wood, repeat with tiny wood, finish with top soil removed from ditch. His beds were very high! It has been years, but I remember the first year being as tall as me as a kid. First year was a cover crop. His rows were maybe 20' long. They were not so tall when I grew up, but they were still terraces after 30+ years.
This was so cool! Especially the digging into the dirt 6 mo. later, to see what stuffs looked like underneath. I appreciated the step by step process for sure, but the explanations for why steps were taken, even the simple stuff, was really useful. Thanks you!
I had no idea it would be so special to see wheat growing in an actual garden. These days, wheat is usually something you see on tv at large agro-corp facilities. It was beautiful seeing a small field of it growing like it might have in past times
Thanks. I made a hugelkulture in the fall 2019 it was 3' under ground and 4' above. It never reduced water use, and was honestly quite disappointing. This year I removed the above ground layer because it was invaded by a gopher. I will place shallow raised beds with hardware cloth on the bottom. To make use of the wood in the ground, but give the veggies a buffer from the gophers. Maybe your smaller hugelkulture is a better option in the hot dry weather. Thanks, and good luck.
My 2nd year LARGE hugelkultur bed is blowing my first season no-till beds out of the water. It's shocking. The garlic and sweet onions I have going on it look like they want to go to the state fair. But it did take a full year for it to really get going on the fertility. But I do have a tall Birdie's bed I was trying to figure out how to fill.....I'm totally going to fill the bottom half with wood, which I have!
Following up on folks that should join your team... i HIGHLY recommended reaching out to more than farmers. Im absolutely enamored with their way of living and how they appraoch homesteading.
Suggest a community gardener as well. I live in a high rise in the DC metro and have been a community gardener for over 10 years. 30 by 30 in 7b. I’m not photogenic so am not volunteering!
