SD's do-less garden model

[SD51555]

I don't own a tiller or a hoe. I subscribe to the model of deep carbon gardening. I've got just a few things going right now as this was always about testing the idea, and not production.

This is the first hugel bed I ever built. I have re-worked the design a ton since this was made. I dug down about 10" from the lawn, and started filling with aspen firewood, oak, rotted stump and whatever else I could find nearby. I layered in the sod, other nearby soil, and mounded it up as high as I could. This spring's arrangement is forage collards, faba beans, jalapeno peppers, green peppers, and red onions.



One error I made was having the wood so close to the surface. It's hard to plant plants, because there just aren't pockets to dig out a space for a root ball. Here you can see a couple chunks of firewood sticking out the side.



There is a full on fungi colonization in the pile, and this stuff is all eating on wood carbon and organic nitrogen. I never thought to grab a picture of it, but there's also an explosion in mushrooms in the lawn right next to this, right downstream from where any excess water might move across the lawn.

 

[SD51555]

These are the potatoes I was talking about. They are darn near waist high already. These are out in my food plot now.

This one is getting a tad bit hairy, but I think it’ll be ok.

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[SD51555]

This summer, I'm gonna bring the excavator back out and build a production sized garden and fence it in. It'll be about 18' x 22' and I'll go down 2-3' and back fill with all the stumps, logs, and brush I've got laying around the yard, top it with wood chips and some alfalfa pellets, and then cover crop it to flax, yellow sweet clover, whatever annual clover I have left, collards, sorghum, sunflower, and triticale. Then next season, I'll jump right into grow mode.

 

[Telemark]

I'm rather fond of the hugel method. I generally grow vegetables in raised beds because of the soil and climate here. Filling the beds mostly with wood really helps keep the soil costs down, and I believe it helps with moisture and biology in the beds.

I do a good layer of wood with a layer of dirt on top, and top it all off with Berkeley compost. Root vegetables get pulled, but above-ground vegetables just get cut off, with the roots left in the soil.

I'm able to get 3-4 harvests in a short growing season if I plant the right vegetables.

 

[SWIFFY]

We use big stock tanks and fill the bottoms with rotting wood. It does work great and helps hold moisture. Im growing potatoes right now in 5 gallon tree pots filled with wood and bark and soil and straw. well see how those do.

Its a great concept!

 

[SD51555]

Well, that pic up above where the test hoog looks perfect…. That didn’t last. In the days after, the surplus was taken either by deer, woodchuck, or rabbits.

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[KingLoser]

Oh wow that thing got mowed down.

 

[sandbur]

Well, that pic up above where the test hoog looks perfect…. That didn’t last. In the days after, the surplus was taken either by deer, woodchuck, or rabbits.

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Fence!


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[Tree Spud]

I don't own a tiller or a hoe. I subscribe to the model of deep carbon gardening. I've got just a few things going right now as this was always about testing the idea, and not production.

This is the first hugel bed I ever built. I have re-worked the design a ton since this was made. I dug down about 10" from the lawn, and started filling with aspen firewood, oak, rotted stump and whatever else I could find nearby. I layered in the sod, other nearby soil, and mounded it up as high as I could. This spring's arrangement is forage collards, faba beans, jalapeno peppers, green peppers, and red onions.



One error I made was having the wood so close to the surface. It's hard to plant plants, because there just aren't pockets to dig out a space for a root ball. Here you can see a couple chunks of firewood sticking out the side.

SD ...interested in this method for building our garden.

I have lots of walnut trees that have died and are decaying. Any though on using walnut with the juglone concern?

 

[SD51555]

SD ...interested in this method for building our garden.

I have lots of walnut trees that have died and are decaying. Any though on using walnut with the juglone concern?

Man, I'm not sure. I'd think at some point that juglone would degrade so you could use it, but I'm not sure how long that'd take.

A quick google makes is look like it's a pretty quick decay. I'd stack anything I was going to use for a year to dry out before burying it anyway.