Times of Extreme Frugality: What the Heck is Hugelkultur?

It's been a while since I posted but the beginning of autumn and the end of garden season has meant a mad rush here at Silk Road.

We've been harvesting and processing tomatoes, picking apples, pulling carrots and onions, digging potatoes, mining for sweet potatoes, gathering pumpkins, and trying to take back the garden from a massive weed invasion. 

Tom has also embarked on the adventure of substitute teaching, getting calls at 7am to be at the school by 7:30. Needless to say, being blasted out of bed and pushed immediately out the door is hard on a night owl like my husband. But he's managing.

And we have finally managed to try our first experiment with hugelkultur.

Hugelkultur (say it like you're baying like a bloodhound. Don't you just love German words?) is gardening with raised beds built on rotting wood and other biomass, providing long-term humus and fertility production. It has been practiced in Europe for decades and is now the latest darling of the hipster gardeners. 

Since part of our garden was water-logged long into spring, I thought a super-raised bed might help. 


The first step is to dig out the soil.

We did this with two shovels and two aching backs, so we didn't dig that deep.

Next, you put wood in the hole. We didn't have any rotting or otherwise useless wood hanging around, so Tom ventured into the edge of our lawn and hacked off some dead limbs.

We had saved the hay mulch that was on top of the bed. This went in next.

Then we got to re-shovel the same dirt, back where it came from.

Not as high as a traditional hugelkultur mound and it will settle over the winter, but I'm hopeful it will drain faster than this spot did last spring.

We can now say we are up with the latest trend in gardening; two  hepcats swinging to the hugelkultur beat *plays bongos and snaps fingers*.