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You are here: Home / Garden Chats / Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Hugelkulture

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Hugelkulture

by Anne Laurie|  August 9, 20205:44 am| 65 Comments

This post is in: Garden Chats

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Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Hugelkulture 5

From the ever-reliable, ever-determined Ozark Hillbilly:

Last year Satby submitted a post on Hugelkulture and after looking it up I thought, “Cool, I think I’ll do that!” After much blood, sweat, a few tears, (and a number of choice curse words thrown in the general direction of N. Indiana) I finally got them done.

Step 1) After tilling the garden I dug out a couple of flat level spots for the frame, which was built out of salvaged cedar 2x6s.

Sunday Morning Garden Chat 14

2) After laying down the frames, I started filling them. First with a base layer of dead wood 3-4″ in diameter (mostly oak but some maple too), then a layer of compost, making sure I filled all the voids between the wood as best I could.

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Hugelkulture

3) Another layer of wood and another of compost, (this compost layer was mostly composted chicken litter from my chicken coop, lots of nitrogen in all that chicken shit).

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Hugelkulture 1

4) Then I built the frame out of pallets I got for free from my lumber yard.

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Hugelkulture 2

5) A layer of straw and another layer of compost.

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Hugelkulture 3

6) then I finished the frames and filled them with the final layer of soil/compost.

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Hugelkulture 4

7) I planted pickling cukes in one and melons in the other, and then I had to wait [Top picture].

8) Success! In one bed I planted 2 types of pickling cucumbers, Dar, and Miniature Whites. Guess which one this is. In the other I planted 3 types of melons: Sweet Passion (who could resist?), Golden Jenny, and Sakata’s Sweet Melon. As of now I only have one small melon but my fingers are crossed.

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Hugelkulture 6

As I expected, there has been a fair bit of settling of the soil and I will have to add more next year but after that I shouldn’t need anything but a bit of compost for top dressing in the spring. It was a lot of work and I’m glad I did it, but I don’t think I see a 3rd one in my future.

***********
While we’re praising Satby with faint damns… Her favorable mention led me to order a whole bunch of sale irises from Schreiners Gardens. My order arrived Friday, a beautifully packed straw bale of fat prosperous green fans with stout roots, and of course due to a miserable rainy June and heinously hot/humid July the bed I planned has not yet been dug out, so I spent a big chunk of Saturday sorting rhizomes into hastily-filled rootpouches. And I’ll spend more time today filling the rest of the pouches, and nagging the Spousal Unit into planting ‘his’ preferred dwarf irises into the planters he’s got waiting in the garage before the poor little things get forgotten. But if they survive (after re-reading the planting info, I may have overdone the composted manure), next spring: IRISES!

Also this week, I finally got my first ripe full-sized tomatoes: Cherokee Purples, Ramapos, and Chocolate Amazons! Of course, now that there’s more green fruits fattening up, all the vines have been stricken with yellow blight, wilt blight, or both… but while I frantically curse & prune & spray, at least I’ve got delicious homegrown tomatoes to console me.

What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?

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65Comments

  1. 1.

    SWMBO

    August 9, 2020 at 6:16 am

    Do you have a link to satby’s hugelkulture from last year?

  2. 2.

    satby

    August 9, 2020 at 6:30 am

    After much blood, sweat, a few tears, (and a number of choice curse words thrown in the general direction of N. Indiana)

    First wheezy laugh of the day! Thanks OH ?
    Your hugelkulture beds are far superior to the pile I created. But now I aspire to do a better one in back.

  3. 3.

    Fraud Guy

    August 9, 2020 at 6:32 am

    We started gathering our Cherokee Purples this week; had some with fresh Mozzarella and prosciutto.  Nom.

  4. 4.

    satby

    August 9, 2020 at 6:35 am

    And AL, my iris came Thursday night as I was preparing to go straight from Saturdays market to Lexington, so I unpacked the ones I got, then slightly dampened the roots and repacked them, and put them inside my house to keep cool. Tomorrow I’ll be home and planting them. They are all gorgeous big healthy roots, so they should be ok. edit: their daylillies are huge fans too.

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 9, 2020 at 6:42 am

    @satby: One of my many faults is that when I decide to do something, I like to go whole hog. No half measures for me. Unfortunately, my ADD means I am easily distracted from whatever project is at the forefront to attend to a thousand and one piddly ass nuisances. I managed to stay fairly focused thru this one and got them done in a more or less timely fashion.

    For those interested, this is the link satby provided oh so long ago: The Many Benefits of Hugelkultur.

  6. 6.

    JeanneT

    August 9, 2020 at 6:46 am

    My dogs started picking and eating my cucumbers and pole beans, so I’ve put fencing around the raised beds to keep them out.  I figured out it’s cheaper and more effective to use dog exercise pens as fencing than to frog around with building frames and wire mesh.  A standard 8 panel x-pen fits perfectly on my 4×4 foot beds: easy up, easy down.

    My tomatoes are still green green green and perhaps due to last weeks wonderful cool weather, not flowering heavily.  It’s going to be hot today, so maybe that will give them a push.

  7. 7.

    WereBear

    August 9, 2020 at 6:54 am

    I have nothing but praise for the no-dig methods I used for irises, rose bushes, and the living ground covers I gave them.

  8. 8.

    CCL

    August 9, 2020 at 6:58 am

    Love Schreiners.   Been ordering from them for ages.  One year long ago, in Portland on the other coast for a work assignment, I dragged my co-workers down to Salem…unawares that it was the iris festival day!  Gorgeous Iris, picnic food and drinks, music and tours of the garden, heaven.   Totally unexpected but I never let on and my co-workers thought I was genius, for maybe twenty minutes.

    They do gift certificates….make lovely Christmas presents.

  9. 9.

    FelonyGovt

    August 9, 2020 at 7:22 am

    We’re attending to our long-neglected back yard and are now trying to locate all the sprinkler heads, many of which have been covered over by dirt and overgrown weeds, to determine whether our system is salvageable.

    And my potted dwarf Meyer lemon tree, which I complained about some weeks ago, is now flourishing after the application of fertilizer and much more frequent watering.

  10. 10.

    RedDirtGirl

    August 9, 2020 at 7:40 am

    I read the first line as “last WEEK Satby submitted a post about…”, and I didn’t understand how everything grew so quickly.

  11. 11.

    satby

    August 9, 2020 at 7:42 am

    @WereBear: can you go into more detail or share a link about those no dig methods?

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 9, 2020 at 7:57 am

    @RedDirtGirl: It’s magic.

  13. 13.

    germy

    August 9, 2020 at 7:57 am

    These birds:

    he was a punk … she did ballet pic.twitter.com/KyEIkTuBxC

    — faerie king ? (@necrologies) August 8, 2020

  14. 14.

    rikyrah

    August 9, 2020 at 7:59 am

    Good Morning, Everyone ???

  15. 15.

    Cheryl Rofer

    August 9, 2020 at 8:06 am

    Got my Schreiner’s iris this week and planted them!

  16. 16.

    Lapassionara

    August 9, 2020 at 8:07 am

    These look amazing. Thanks for posting and let us know when the melons show up.

  17. 17.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 9, 2020 at 8:27 am

    @Lapassionara: Still no melons. The one baby melon I had shriveled up and died. The only thing I can think of is a lack of calcium/phosphate or possibly the soil is not acidic enough. I’ll do some soil testing and try to adjust for those if they are in fact a problem.

  18. 18.

    SiubhanDuinne

    August 9, 2020 at 8:40 am

    O/T, but is anyone here in northern NC/southern VA? There was a 5.1 earthquake near Sparta, NC about half an hour ago. Haven’t yet seen reports of damage/injuries, if any.

  19. 19.

    debbie

    August 9, 2020 at 8:43 am

    (and a number of choice curse words thrown in the general direction of N. Indiana)

    Bet that Zen garden came in handy a time or two, huh?

  20. 20.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 9, 2020 at 8:51 am

    @debbie: Heh, every damn day of the our current nightmare.

  21. 21.

    JPL

    August 9, 2020 at 8:58 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: Twitter tells me that it was felt in SC also.

  22. 22.

    debbie

    August 9, 2020 at 8:58 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I bet.

    Now that I’ve looked more closely at the photos, stupid question: How do you keep the soil from falling out of the sides?

  23. 23.

    JPL

    August 9, 2020 at 8:59 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:  One year I had beautiful melons, then the bugs came..   pshaw     Your work is incredible.

  24. 24.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    August 9, 2020 at 9:06 am

    Hugelkulture

    I don’t remember seeing that post, but I just heard that word a couple weeks ago from a local Philly group who was giving a seminar on container gardening. I think they were suggesting the same kind of structure (woody stuff on bottom with soil piled on top) for potted plants on the deck / porch.

    I’m a very low-maintenance gardener, little more than throw seeds in the soil and see what happens. We’ve got a bunch of squash-looking volunteers from compost, beautiful flowers, and we’ve been waiting to see what they actually produce: pumpkins, zucchini, or gourds from Halloween (all of those have happened in the past). But so far nothing, so I wonder if somebody is eating the little baby whatevers. My wife has been talking about cooking with the blossoms, but we aren’t totally sure they’re edible blossoms since we don’t know what species this is.

    I unfortunately got kind of attached to the cherry tomato plants I started from seed and nursed through frost season, and we’re fighting it out with the squirrels for domination. I’m in agony every time I find a beautiful red one on the ground with one little squirrel bite taken out of it. See? This is why you don’t want to do a lot of maintenance, you just end up investing a lot of futile emotional energy in your vegetables.

  25. 25.

    Benw

    August 9, 2020 at 9:07 am

    Yesterday I swore that I’d strap on the hazmat suit (poison ivy and virginia creeper both give me terrible rashes) and start in on the final weeded up quadrant of my yard.

    Today, I’m waffling

  26. 26.

    JPL

    August 9, 2020 at 9:08 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: Local news said there were reports that it was felt around here.

  27. 27.

    Kattails

    August 9, 2020 at 9:13 am

    Awesome work Ozark, what are those round white things in the background? That is a LOT of clearing for a wooded area. The ONLY thing I miss about having chickens is all that lovely manure. Had a compost pile that smoked.

    I’ve gotten several ripe tomatoes here in NH, but I did spend real money to buy the larger plants.  One Early Girl type and one yellow “Valencia” which is low-seed. I just really suffer from not enough sun on either end of the growing season, and cutting enough trees would mean several large oaks.  I’ve given up on the long-season tomatoes.

    I’m picking beans. Got a lousy pea crop– we had snow on the ground in mid-May and then a super hot and dry June and July. I’ve pulled them and planted fall lettuce.  I’ve got a ton of Swiss chard and will be making another pie with them today with a leek, some homemade white cheese, and–shit I forgot to get dill, well basil will have to do.  Made a big batch of pesto even discarding a lot of leaves the damned grasshoppers shredded. Have trapped about 8 voles. The shallots are starting to dry.

    I used up a lot of garden space with annuals and dahlias, which are doing pretty well, the dahlias just coming in.  Next year I might clean out some of the overgrown perennial beds and use that space to interplant annuals, so as to free up the veggie beds again. Lucky, though, to have several decent farm markets around here.

    Giving myself the weekend to work around the house, cook and clean. Spent two days reaming out the woodshed/tool shed, one side of which had been partly blocked off for awhile and taken over by mice. Had to wear a mask to ream it out. All clean up, reorganized, a few wheelbarrows of firewood put in, went out this AM with coffee in hand to admire my handiwork!! As I’m sure many of you do after a long slog on a project. Well OK it was wine last night until the skeeties drove me inside.

  28. 28.

    Ken

    August 9, 2020 at 9:13 am

    @JPL: Twitter tells me that it was felt in SC also.

    Wait, both diseases and earthquakes don’t respect political boundaries?

  29. 29.

    JPL

    August 9, 2020 at 9:14 am

    Is anyone watching Kudlow on CNN?   He’s trying to sell the president’s plan as something it’s not.

  30. 30.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 9, 2020 at 9:14 am

    @debbie: Soil compaction and now roots. I lost some at first but it stabilizes after a bit.

    @JPL: I grow melons every year. Sometimes I even get to eat one or two. Last year I did really well with them and got 6-8 (the critters got at least that many). At this point I’d just like to see some grow.

  31. 31.

    oldgold

    August 9, 2020 at 9:15 am

    In one section of West of Eden I planted melons and broccoli. I got a sad result -meloncoli.

  32. 32.

    WereBear

    August 9, 2020 at 9:15 am

    @satby: Gladly. This method supposes adequate rain, which was never a problem on Long Island :)

    Lay out the bed. Plant in hole dug for the plants. Then put down layers of newspaper over everything else, like 10 sheets, go to town. I was putting mine over 3-4 inches of matted down weeds like wire, so I used a lot.

    Then hold it down with LOTS of large bark mulch, with the holes filled in with small bark mulch.

    There’s your garden.

  33. 33.

    germy

    August 9, 2020 at 9:19 am

    “A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows.”
    –  Doug Larson

  34. 34.

    O. Felix Culpa

    August 9, 2020 at 9:20 am

    @oldgold: Ouch.

  35. 35.

    Carolineblue

    August 9, 2020 at 9:22 am

    @SiubhanDuinne:  I’m in N.C., and I felt it. My house shook. I had no idea what had happened until my niece in Apex texted me to see if I felt it too.

  36. 36.

    Ken

    August 9, 2020 at 9:24 am

    @germy: Have you read The Botany of Desire?  The author, Michael Pollan, would argue that a weed is a plant that has mastered every skill except giving humans something they want.

  37. 37.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 9, 2020 at 9:26 am

    @oldgold: That’s it. I’m coming for you.  ;-)

  38. 38.

    Baud

    August 9, 2020 at 9:26 am

    Very nice, OH (and satby).

    @rikyrah:

    Good morning.

  39. 39.

    evap

    August 9, 2020 at 9:27 am

    I’ve had terrible luck with tomatoes for the past few years, so I just put in a couple of cherry tomato plants this year and left it at that.   They have taken over the garden and produced tons of tomatoes!  As a bonus, the squirrels have left them alone.    I’ve discovered you can make a good sauce and other stuff with cherry tomatoes, plus I put them in my daily salads.    And I had no idea that cherry tomatoes make such huge plants!

    Last year, I had an abundance of chilies, and I gave many away plus dried enough to last most of the year. This year, the chilies are hardly producing.  Meanwhile, eggplant was a bust last year and this year I’ve been getting tons, including an Asian eggplant plant that is incredibly productive.    I’m not sure what that’s about, but as long as I’m getting something, I’m happy.

  40. 40.

    O. Felix Culpa

    August 9, 2020 at 9:27 am

    Question: My cucumber leaves, which are manifold, have started showing little light brown dots on them. Should I be worried? Should I do something?

  41. 41.

    zhena gogolia

    August 9, 2020 at 9:29 am

    @JPL: 
    I’m shocked, shocked (Claude Rains face)

  42. 42.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 9, 2020 at 9:32 am

    @O. Felix Culpa: Give last rites?

  43. 43.

    O. Felix Culpa

    August 9, 2020 at 9:35 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: LOL. Thank you, I think.

  44. 44.

    Ken

    August 9, 2020 at 9:43 am

    @O. Felix Culpa: A google search isn’t much help, sorry. Leaf spots can be caused by a virus, a couple of bacteria, a fungus, or just the plant nearing the end of its life. I suggest trying a search and seeing if you can match the picture.

    If it is a disease OzarkHillbilly’s recommendation may be best, in that you don’t want it to spread.  You also shouldn’t plant cucumbers in the same plot next year.

  45. 45.

    SiubhanDuinne

    August 9, 2020 at 9:47 am

    @JPL:

    Did you feel it? I didn’t. I remember one from several years ago — I think it was near Chattanooga — that wasn’t all that strong, but still managed to startle me awake.

  46. 46.

    SiubhanDuinne

    August 9, 2020 at 9:49 am

    @Carolineblue: Wow. I hope no damage.

  47. 47.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 9, 2020 at 9:51 am

    @O. Felix Culpa: I live to serve.

    My own garden news is filled with tomatoes, beans, jalapenos and poblanos, cucumbers and eggplants. Got a few sweet peppers too. I’ve already made my salsa for this year and we still have plenty of sauce from last year, so after I can some diced I’m giving away the rest of the maters. I am making a batch of sour pickles with the cukes.

    Smoking a pork shoulder today and gonna grill the eggplants to go with it.

  48. 48.

    japa21

    August 9, 2020 at 9:59 am

    From the ever-reliable, ever-determined Ozark Hillbilly:

    Obviously forgot the word ever-indefatigable in that description. I am in awe.

  49. 49.

    Rob

    August 9, 2020 at 10:00 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: Some people felt it in the suburbs of DC. I didn’t, however. Maybe walking outside to get in my car is why I didn’t feel it. I certainly felt the 2011 Virginia earthquake in the house, I thought the water heater in the unoccupied townhouse next door was about to blow up. I also felt the Gaithersburg/Germantown earthquake in 2010, being no more than 10 miles from the epicenter.

  50. 50.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 9, 2020 at 10:05 am

    @japa21: indefatigable

    Sadly, that word no longer applies. I set limited goals for any one day and then take lots of breaks. Sit back in the sunshine/shade with a glass of iced tea and listen to the birds until my back ceases it’s complaining.

    ETA: and with that I have to go build a fire for the aforementioned pork shoulder. Have a nice day all.

  51. 51.

    O. Felix Culpa

    August 9, 2020 at 10:09 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: I have tomatoes, some of which are thriving, others not so much. The in-ground tomatoes seem happier than the container plants.  I’m also growing peppers, eggplants, snow peas, beans, cukes, zucchini, chard, carrots, onions, several kinds of winter squash and pumpkin, and various herbs. I’ve had more time to tend the garden since being grounded by the pandemic.

  52. 52.

    germy

    August 9, 2020 at 10:20 am

    @Ken:  I did not read the book, but i saw the PBS documentary based on it.

  53. 53.

    Baud

    August 9, 2020 at 10:25 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    . I set limited goals for any one day and then take lots of breaks.

    That’s how I am.  I spend about half an hour each day thinking about all the things I’m going to accomplish and then take the rest of the day off.

  54. 54.

    Baud

    August 9, 2020 at 10:29 am

    @JPL:

    Is anyone watching Kudlow on CNN?   He’s trying to sell the president’s plan as something it’s not.

    A plan?

  55. 55.

    O. Felix Culpa

    August 9, 2020 at 10:31 am

    @Baud: And how unusual that anything emanating from the White House would be deceptive.

  56. 56.

    Another Scott

    August 9, 2020 at 10:33 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: Nothing registered here for me in NoVA.

    https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/se60324281/executive

    It happened at 12:07:37 UTC or 8:07:37 EDT.

    Thanks for the pointer.  I had no idea.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  57. 57.

    frosty

    August 9, 2020 at 10:35 am

    Garden news – I’m a Square Foot Gardener with two 4×4 plots. I planted 4 grape tomato plants and they went crazy; spilling out over the top of the 54″ tomato cages and more ripe tomatoes than I would have thought possible. The Jetstars and Early Girls are doing well too. Butternut squash is now running out on the lawn and the little squashes are growing.

    The pole beans overtopped my trellis; however, lots of foliage, no beans. There are a number of reasons for it that I’ll have to ponder before next Spring. In the meantime I’m pulling them out today. I might put lettuce in that row, the tomato plants would keep them shaded and a little cooler.

    As for the rest of the yard, I’m still contemplating what to do with it.

  58. 58.

    oldgold

    August 9, 2020 at 10:45 am

    Given my travails with West of Eden, I have been considering what do you do when life gives you melons.

    After considerable thought, I may have solved the philosophical conundrum.

  59. 59.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 9, 2020 at 11:02 am

    @O. Felix Culpa: I’m back now. The squash bugs have been so bad the last few years, I waited until the first week of July to plant my Zucchini and pattypans. (I read that the bugs peak around June 1st and quickly die back) If I have no problems with them (so far so good) I’ll plant some winter squash again next year. I love Romanesco zuch’s and it hurt to wait but not near as much as watching baby squash die on the fast wilting vines. I am wondering how many I will get in this shortened season.

  60. 60.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 9, 2020 at 11:03 am

    @Baud: Heh. You’ve been reading my diary again I see.

  61. 61.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 9, 2020 at 11:13 am

    @Kattails: Awesome work Ozark, what are those round white things in the background?

    My apologies Kattails, I was going to answer and my ADD took over again.

    Those are planters I put in for potatoes to keep critters from eating them before I dig them up. They are made from food grade plastic 55 gal barrels. I drilled holes in the bottoms for drainage, put down hardware cloth over them, then a layer of creek gravel, then weed cloth, then compost and soil. They worked well for their intended purpose but I no longer grow potatoes. These days I use them for other plants in need of protection from critters. I have made 4′ tall cages of 2×4 welded wire fencing and 1″ poultry fencing that slide over the barrels. Bstrd squirrels and chipmunks ain’t eaten anymore of my sweet peppers and eggplants!

    ETA: here’s hoping you come back and see this.

  62. 62.

    O. Felix Culpa

    August 9, 2020 at 11:14 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: I have avoided squash bugs thus far through sheer dumb luck. I did plant my squashes a little later this year, so maybe that helped.

  63. 63.

    cope

    August 9, 2020 at 11:26 am

    @germy: Or even more reductively, a weed is a plant growing where you don’t want it:  my 9th grade biology teacher.

  64. 64.

    TomatoQueen

    August 9, 2020 at 11:29 am

    Wonderful to hear everyone’s gardens producing something, in spite of climate vagaries, weird conditions, vermin, and serendipity. The last year I was able to grow tomatoes (patio grow bags linked with five foot frames) was also the year my neighbor went slightly batshit with the bird feeders, so just as soon as the fruits fruited, there were the lovelies doing their one bite work. Not wanting to have a quarrel with my neighbor, I draped bird netting over every frame, and this saved the crop. Until one has actually done it, applying bird netting seems straightforward enough,  but it is an excruciating pain in the ass as everything tangles with everything, and then suddenly it is done and you don’t have to move it around more.  I hope not to have to use it again but as a last resort it works.

  65. 65.

    Elizabelle

    August 9, 2020 at 12:44 pm

    Love your hugelkulture work, Ozark.  You are an energetic and ambitious sort, very resourceful, and I hope future crops/plantings do even better.

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