My Hugalculture Experiment

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My Hugalculture Experiment

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Wed Jan 18, 2012 5:00 pm

I have been double digging my garden in small sections at a time. I started with 8' X 8' and have increased to 10' X 10' now that I was forced to retire. That does not sound like alot more but it is 64 sq ft vs 100 sq ft. I dig down as far as I can dig, which at my place is 28" to maybe 32" until I hit solid cap stone rock. I had been putting a thick layer of leaf mulch on the bottom to hold water. I had never heard of Hugalculture but was thinking along those same lines. I sifted the rocks out as I back filled putting in 2 cart loads of sifted sub soil then 2 heeping cart loads of leaves. I added a few shovel fulls of lime to each layer of leaves. Last year I decided to do a hugalculture bed as an experiment. I followed the same process of layering the subsoil and leaves after the base of rotting wood chips , then logs, then more wood chips to fill in around the logs. I plant my tomatos each year in that new bed. They grow to over 6' high. Here are some pictures.

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You can see that I have alot of rock, definately pick and shovel work

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I was only able to go 28" in this section

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This shows the area almost backfilled. It ended up about 4" to 6" higher then the rest of the garden. It has already started to sink back down some.



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When I sift out the rocks I am using them to extend a level area by my fire ring. I am using the biggest stones to form a retaning wall to hold back the rest. I have extrnded the level area by about 4'. It has been years in the making and the garden is just over 1/2 done at this point.
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Re: My Hugalculture Experiment

Postby matt walker » Wed Jan 18, 2012 6:18 pm

Okay, this is just awesome. Thanks so much for sharing Guy. I've been looking for some first hand experience, and the "I predict" quotes I see on some hugelkultur information drive me nuts. This is great. So, you've done one season on this bed already? How did it hold moisture? Did you find you were able to water less? Did the plants show signs of nitrogen deficiency or surplus? I'm sooooo curious. Your technique looks great, I'm going to basically copy you in a month or two.
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Re: My Hugalculture Experiment

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Wed Jan 18, 2012 10:04 pm

I do not water. I may haul a couple of buckets up to the garden when I plant the plants, and maybe for a day or 2 after planting. I rely on the Good Lord to water after that. I mulch heavy with grass clippings around all of my plants and pathways. I have an old Alis Chalmers 18 hp mower that has a leaf vac and cart behind it to suck up the grass. It runs off a pully drive from the tractor so I do not have to maintain another internal combustion engin. I have quite enough of those already. That is the reason I bought that particular unit. The garden holds water all year, it is always moist under the grass. An old Italian Gardener I know told me " If you mulch when its wet it will stay wet, If you mulch when its dry it will stay dry. So I mulch after a rain. You have to remember that I live in South west Pa. We have good rain fall here, Aug is often dry and some years we dont get any rain for 3 weeks or so, maybe even a month at times, but that is rare. June and July generally get good rain fall to keep things moist. My wood was not very rotted when I put it in, I would expect a slightly better result this year. My tomatos did like they always do in a new bed, Great, they were over 6' high and produced well. I did see a difference in my bean plants. Part of the row was double dug and improved, part was not. You could see a line in the row where it started and stopped. The plants were bigger, taller and healthier where I had put the improved ground. My neighbor thinks I am nuts for doing all that work and sifting out the rocks. He pays to go to the Gym every day, I work in the garden for free. He does feel that my garden does better than his does, his comment was that I don't tend the plants, I tend the soil. I liked that thought. The plan has been working very well for me over the years. My screen takes out large rocks down to about a quarter, it lets a nickle or dime through. The sand stone is very soft and some of it I can break up with my hands. Alot gets pulverized going through the screen. So I feel that I am retaining alot of minerals in the soil. The deeper I dig the harder the rock becomes. When I built the house I had to jack hammer the corners of the foundation the back hoe couldn't dig them. That is why I stopped at 28" in that area, it was just too hard to dig any more. Some areas of the garden I have gotten down to 32" or a bit deeper. My goal was 36" deep but I have not been able to get that deep in most areas. Tomato and pepper roots run deep, I wanted a place for them to go. You can see what rock is in my sub soil, where is no way the roots could get through that. So I sifted them out. I enjoy the process, it is relaxing for me, and I do not over do it, I stop and rest when I get tired or winded.
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Re: My Hugalculture Experiment

Postby matt walker » Thu Jan 19, 2012 3:55 am

What a great post, thanks for that. I'm encouraged that you found you didn't need to water, and that's a good tip about when to mulch. I've been moving more and more towards that style, keeping the soil moist and healthy by keeping it covered.

Sort of off topic, but have you seen the film "Back to Eden"? A gardener of a similar bent, but with a unique style of mulching. I enjoyed it, and I imagine you would enjoy his spirituality as well.

http://backtoedenfilm.com/#movie

I'm really excited to try a hugel bed this year, although if I dig down 28 inches in my garden I fear I'll make a pond! I guess I'll have to try it and see.
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Re: My Hugalculture Experiment

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Thu Jan 19, 2012 2:01 pm

That is a Great movie, wood chips do make a wonderful mulch. My Father as forced to garden during the depression and as I was growing up he would never have a garden. When he retired he started a garden behind his new garage. I told him that he was getting no sun back there right up against the north side of the garage. I suggested that he move his new garden farther up into the field. He said that was terrible soil there, all just back fill, solid clay, no top soil and that it was hard for him to even get grass to grow there. I told him to mulch the soil, he didn't believe me that it would work to improve the soil. After several years of very disappointing gardens behind the gardage he got a load of wood chips delivered from a local tree trimmer. He had a pile of wood chips rotting up in his field ever since then. He had wonderful gardens out in the sun in that terrible clay soil with the wood chips as mulch. In his later years he was happy to tell everyone what a Great idea he had to put the mulch on his garden and tell them how well it worked. :lol:
Never doubt that a small group of dedicated people can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has.
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Re: My Hugalculture Experiment

Postby matt walker » Thu Jan 19, 2012 5:23 pm

Hahaha. That's a great story, and illustrates the power of mulch well.

I'm considering trying a small area of garden the same way as Paul does in that film. It was filmed in my area and I have access to the same organic chip and compost supplier. I have spoken with a dump truck operator, and have tentatively lined up a couple loads to try out. I will need to evaluate whether I'm going to spend money on that this spring, my garden does very well as is, but I'm perpetually curious about new techniques.
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Re: My Hugalculture Experiment

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Fri Feb 10, 2012 11:16 pm

Learning new ways to do things is always nice, especially when they Work. I just finished the section I started last fall and have started a new section for this springs project. The section I did last fall I used well rotted horse poop with alot of well rotted saw dust as bedding. It was mostly saw dust bedding and I put a small PU load in the 10' X10' section. It was easier to haul than the logs and I am hopeing that it works the same way. The load made a layer about 9" or better on the bottom of the hole. The rest was layered in with sifted sub soil and leaves untill the top layer of top soil was replaced. The new project is next to my hugelculture experiment, so I may continue to use logs in this new section. It seems to me that all of these projects have improved the garden, both in mosture retention and fertility. Trying to determine which project works best maybe hard for me. I do not plan on working as hard as George, and I deffinately am too Lazy to keep that kind of detailed records. I guess my gut reaction to how things grow will have to do.
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Re: My Hugalculture Experiment

Postby matt walker » Fri Feb 10, 2012 11:28 pm

I'm glad to revisit this post. Guy, that bed you show above is quite an accomplishment. I hope I can find the energy to do the same. It seems a good plan to just start small and work a section each season. I hope you'll continue to show us how it produces for us as the season gets going.

So, if I understand you correctly, you work each new section of the garden during the growing season, let it set overwinter, and plant it's first crop the following spring? Or do you work it in the spring and plant immediately?
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Re: My Hugalculture Experiment

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Sat Feb 11, 2012 12:01 am

I work them in the fall after harvest and befor real cold winter sets in, and then again in the spring befor planting time. Trying to do 2 sections a year now that I have more time, one in the fall and one in the spring. I got caught with a cold snap last Dec and had about 2 cart loads of top soil to sift to finish the fall project. I did that on Ground Hog Day then I started the next section for the spring that afternoon. I have not been back to it, its been snowing off and on here. I do plant the sections the 1st year, I do not let them sit fallow. All of my garden is planted each and every year, planted full normally. Letting them sit for a year might help let the leaves rot and the lime work in a bit, But I do not wait, I use the new section for my tomatos normally. I plant a doz tomatos and have about 6 different varietys growing. I can get 9 of the 12 plants into that 10' X 10' hole with the other 3 plants having a chance to put some roots down into the edge of the hole. My tomatoes are normally over 6' tall and produce well. I do not water the garden after planting. It is a distance from the house, and I do not like to work that hard. Turns out water is Heavy and it takes alot of work to carry it to the garden. ;) The soil has enough organic matter in it to hold the moisture, and we are normally blessed with a goodly amount of rain through out the year. Aug is often dry, but the rest of the year we get pretty good rain fall around here in SW PA. That is one of the good things about living around here.
Never doubt that a small group of dedicated people can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has.
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Re: My Hugalculture Experiment

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Sat Mar 10, 2012 5:52 pm

I have started to dig a new section right next to the Hugelculture bed. I am just about done taking the dirt out of the hole. Here is a picture of what the Hugelbed looks like after 1 year in the ground. You can see that I was able to dig a little deeper in this new section. There are not nearly as many rocks. I am thinking that if I had only moved my garden plot 30 feet to the south when I started 30 years ago I would not have had so many rocks to deal with. Oh well, you live and learn.

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This is the new excavation. It is the last of the 4 corner sections. The corners are the worst because there is not alot of space to throw the dirt. It makes for alot more work. I am glad that this is the last corner section. :D

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Last edited by pa_friendly_guy on Sun Jan 20, 2013 1:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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