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*.

It Can Only Get Better!

I did not grow a garden this year.

I grew a Demonstration Plot for Insect Pests, Diseases, and Nutrient Deficiencies.

Or, as mothers everywhere have said, if it can't be good for anything, at least its a bad example.

I planted green beans and beans for drying, corn and popcorn and field corn, lettuce and spinach and kale and other greens, tomatoes, potatoes, peanuts, onions and garlic, carrots and beets, summer squash and winter and pumpkins and melons.

I have grown all of these successfully before.

The beans, different varieties planted in succession over the summer, were repeatedly chomped down by Mexican bean beetles. I had never even seen these pests before; this summer I handpicked thousands and didn't make a dent.

The corn looked ok, if a little pale, but for some reason pollination was sketchy and many cobs had only a handful of kernels.

Any greens that did germinate in the intense summer heat (yes, I know these should be planted in spring but my plot wasn't tilled until late) were eaten by insects that I never even saw.

The tomatoes did fairly well, except for blossom end rot (another problem I had never seen). I gave them some water with calcium pills dissolved in it and this seemed to help.

The potatoes did fine! Hallelujah. As did the peanuts.

My onions struggled and the few that made it were soft and rotted easily. The garlic came through for me--the grounds are covered with wild garlic so it seems the soil is hospitable for something.

Carrots never came up, beets were sketchy,

 And the pumpkins and friends were attacked by squash borers. Dare I say I've never seen these before either? Add to that, the blossoms were moldy--in a summer where we didn't have a drop of rain for almost a month.

This tale of woe indicates to me that I have a lot to learn about gardening in the Midwest. 


I'll spend the winter researching and working on my plan of attack. Trying to garden organically surrounded by GMO, chemically raised crops will not be easy and I know I have my work cut out for me. But a gardener always knows next year will be better, and as they say in Galaxy Quest, "Never give up, never surrender!"

  

Farmhands

The garden has, once again, gotten away from me. Weeds and pests abound and I just can't bring myself to spend more than 5 minutes out there since this heatwave started.

This morning's 5 minutes were spent watering the tomatoes (I think I have an issue with blossom end rot, so I've dissolved calcium pills* in some water. It can't hurt and just might help). I did a double-take when I saw this tomato hornworm and it's hitchhikers.

These are the coccoons of braconid wasps. These tiny wasps lay their eggs inside the hornworms; the larva hatch and eat the caterpillar's insides (almost makes you feel sorry for the beggar). The wasps are tiny and don't bother people.

And luckily for me, they don't mind heat and humidity. At least, someone is working in the garden!

*I had stocked up on calcium pills on sale and now don't take it anymore. If this works, I'll feel good that I've found a use for them!