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Gardening and Landscaping Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [hugelkultur]

Hügelkultur is mound constructed from decaying wood debris and other organic material that will be used as a raised bed. Use this tag with questions about how to build, what materials to use or how to maintain Hügelkulturs. For traditional raised beds use the [raised-beds] tag.

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What woods shouldn't be used for hugelkultur?

I have a yard this year for the first time and I'm attempting various methods of building beds. For my first bed, I used double digging. But that was an insane amount of work and I'm not all that happy with the bed that resulted. I've been…
Daniel Bingham
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How much soil do I need on top of my hugelkultur beds?

I'm building a bunch of hugelkultur beds from the blowdowns, branches, trimmings, and sticks we have scattered around the property. This weekend I built a 20' long, 5' wide, 2-3' high pile of (mostly old / half rotted) wood of various sizes (0.5" -…
bstpierre
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Can I compost a large brush pile?

For the past year I have been piling up branches and limbs on a border of the yard and now it is about six feet high. I had wanted to experiment with a hugelkultur but the limbs are not very large and include twigs as well as grapevine cuttings,…
ychirea1
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Can I use a palm tree log for Hugelkultur

I'm not exactly sure what type of palm tree this is but I was wondering if I could use it for Hugelkultur (burying it in the ground as a form of compost for my plants). I realise some trees (eg. Eucalyptus) are not good for this technique.
stemie
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Do soil nutrients travel to the surface?

I've built four additional raised beds for my garden, and put a lot of tree branches and cow manure at the bottom. The problem is, the beds are two feet deep (24" sides, I mean), and I had intended on filling them to within 4 inches of the top with…
Jamin Grey
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Can I plant English Walnuts on earth berms above poorly draining clay soil?

I'm in Zone 6a, and I'd like to plant some English Walnut trees (not Black Walnut!), but have rather clay-ish soil. Also, the area where they'd need to be planted tends to get about an inch or two of standing water for about four days after heavy…
Jamin Grey
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Why shouldn't you use these woods when building a hugelkultur?

Someone asked a question on what woods not to use, so I'm wondering why you shouldn't use these wood types when building a hugelkultur (raised bed used to either conserve water, or increase surface area on top of rotting wood): cedar camphor…
black thumb
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Can I fix clayey soil with hugel beds?

I heard about hugel kultur beds, study a bit about it and I think it might help me fix my backyard. It is about 13x11 m that I want to be fertile (so far only weed grows in it). It is heavily packed and a pain to dig around. If I make a long hugel…
Luiz Borges
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how do I modify the square foot gardening method for a community garden with mushrooms also?

I'm building out my community garden concept this year, and was wondering how I can use square food gardening to grow mushrooms in the walking paths, and vegetables on the sides with none of the same plant roots touching unless they're on the same…
black thumb
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Particle board for hugelkultur?

I'm tearing down a shed, and considering the painted particle board walls for putting at the bottom of some tall raised beds. Is that a bad idea? Can/should I use the other structural wood from the shed?
Stella Clemens
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How to build a hugelkultur?

I've got some spare wood from a downed pine tree that's been around for a year. I've asked the local garden labourers to cut the rounds up and stack it on the boundary so I could plant it out. Should I just dump everything except invasive weeds,…
Graham Chiu
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How do you treats ants in a raised Hügulkultur bed?

I have a raised bed that's 2 feet tall, by 12 feet long, by 3 feet wide. This bed is totally infested ants and it took only one week! The bed was constructed with hugulkulture principles, the bottom layer is logs, then sticks, then decomposed leaf…
Evan Carroll
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What do I do with a Hügelkultur bed that contains black walnut?

I have had good luck in the past burying logs to create a Hügelkultur for my garden. This year I decided to build some raised beds and lined the bottom of the beds with logs to get the advantages of Hügelkultur and also to reduce the amount of top…
codeConcussion
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Spruce for Hugelkultur?

I have just learned about hugelkultur and can't seem to find out whether or not spruce trees are good to use for these types of raised beds. It's nearly the only type of tree that grows in my area. Thanks!
user27985
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