On a day in which my dad was here with his tractor, I had the impulse to have him dig a hole. Now the hole had a purpose, but it was going to save me a lot of work as I wanted to try my hand at "hugelkultur." Short version, dig a hole, fill with woody material, mound dirt back on top and plant. The wood base will work as a water sponge and hold water in place. We had the woody material from trimming the neighbor's apple trees and ripping out all the grapevine and autumn olive in the front berry garden area.
My dad used the forks on his tractor to "grab" the woody material and place in the hole. I was in the trench with the chainsaw cutting it down to fit better in the trench. My dad then used the bucket on the tractor to put a couple of scoops of mulch from tree trimmers in there, put on the old soil and then put some old garden soil from the previous owners of the home (sorry to the rabbits who had taken up residence in the pile). We had some leftover mulch and sprinkled that on top. Afterward, we soaked it with water to let the wood get wet. Wish we would have done that first. Our extra seedlings have been planted on this, as well as a giant bag of old seeds that may or may not germinate. Ideally, a hugelkultur bed would have logs and large pieces of wood, but we used what we had and this will be a good experiment. My guess is that next year it will be even better as it captures that spring snow melt and early rains for the remainder of the year.
- Trevor
- Trevor
