Back to Eden Gardening and Hugelkulture and other non-conventional garden methods

[karenerwin]

I have holes in some of my tomatoes, and i have been seeing stink bugs around here. Crap, first it was ground hogs and now bugs.

I just saw a green pepper in my garden with the same type hole in it. I figured it is from a bug of some sort. I was amazed at how perfectly round the holes are.

 

[Latitude33]

Anyone try Hugelkulture on a small scale?

 

[1cock2hens]

I have 2 hugelkulture beds that are 10ft long 3ft high 3ft wide, I grew tons of tomatoes on them and earlier in the year had sweet peas on them, I didnt water them once this year. still have tomatoes and sage growing out of both of my hugelkulture beds.

 

[lazy gardener]

My bed is small, though destined to be big. It's a mickey mouse affair, in that I don't have the top soil to do it right, and have been piling my garden debris on top of the logs for the past 3 years. Last season, I grew squash on it. Harvested a truly impressive crop of blue hubbard, hybrid orange buttercup (some with green tiger striping) and red kuri.

 

[Grandview Acres]

Excellent post, DM!!! Very well written, and yet an other testament to gardening the natural way, the way God designed it. This is exactly why I call myself the Lazy Gardener. It's so much easier to work with a natural plan than to fight it and try to do it "the way we've always done it." Paul's presentation can potentially be a bit off putting to the atheist. And I'm not going to go down that road, other than to say... he's a wise man, it works. And it works very well. And it effectively, in the long haul cuts your gardening work by huge amounts. If you have a yard that is accessible to a big boom truck, and can form an alliance with a tree trimming company, you can get all the material you would ever need, delivered to your yard. IMO, the best material is spring growth, where the wood is very wet and loaded with fresh spring leaves. But, being a beggar, I'll take what ever I can get when ever I can get it, and often come back from the dump with my trash cans loaded up with mulch. The tree companies find it easier to dump there in a huge parking lot than to drop it in my yard.

Now, to the reason for this morning's post: I'm a huge fan of cattle panels. They can be used to build tractors, hoop coops, green houses, trellises, arbors, and basically any thing you can conjure up. They are self supporting, and Premier 1 sells some fantastic wire spirals that can be used to connect any cattle or hog panels at any angle. They are essentially indestructible. The hardest issue of using them is to get them home b/c they are 50" tall and 16' long. They are incredibly rugged, it takes 2 strong people to bend them into an arc to get them into the standard bed of a pick up truck. Then, they must be lashed down very well. I learned this lesson the hard way, when I had 2 panels in my truck. Loaded up so it looked like a connastoga wagon with the canvas missing. Those panels went sailing out of the bed of the truck, and rolled down the highway. I am so thankful that there was no one behind me. I would have caused a serious accident. NOW!!!!! The new and improved: I was doing some price checking and found that TSC carries a product called Handy Panels. These are the same ga. as the CP, but cut down into a more manageable size of 8' x 50". Perfect for the fencing and trellising, where you don't need the full 16' length!!!

LG, I'm as Atheist as can be, but I love the BTE video and concept. If there's a mythical man in the sky who came up with this, great. I don't care why it works, I just care how it works and that it works. I'm getting chips dumped from the crew trimming the power lines this week so they can sit over the winter and I can plant in the spring.

 

[Arielle2]

My son had a garden this year..all cleared and done for the season so I have time to post again....... but I am remembering the older man next to his plot at the community garden, he would ask about all the manure dumped around the tomato plants, mostly shavings of course. I explained how it helped hold the moisture evenly for the plant to use. I felt like I was talking to a rock. A lovely person, but he didnt understand the use of organic mulch. Hugelculture might give him a heart attack!!

Time to raqke up all the leaves and dump on the garden area!! Ducks like to sit on the piles!

 

[igorsMistress]

@lazy gardener how many layers thick do you put down cardboard? I'm trying for weed and grass suppression.

 

[lazy gardener]

@lazy gardener how many layers thick do you put down cardboard? I'm trying for weed and grass suppression.

I would go for 3. I was checking my sheet compost area yesterday. I had laid down cardboard to "suppress the weeds". Then, I tossed some plastic bags full of leaves on top of the cardboard to keep the wind from blowing it away. Where ever the leaf bags sat on the cardboard, the cardboard was completely GONE! Under each bag was a happy family of earth worms. Those worms absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE cardboard. Don't plan on the grass under the cardboard dying any time soon. I've seen green grass under my cardboard + 6" of wood chips persist through the winter, and through the following growing season! Not to worry, though... even with the grass persisting, if your mulch is thick enough, the grass won't emerge to be an issue.

 

[igorsMistress]

I would go for 3. I was checking my sheet compost area yesterday. I had laid down cardboard to "suppress the weeds". Then, I tossed some plastic bags full of leaves on top of the cardboard to keep the wind from blowing it away. Where ever the leaf bags sat on the cardboard, the cardboard was completely GONE! Under each bag was a happy family of earth worms. Those worms absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE cardboard. Don't plan on the grass under the cardboard dying any time soon. I've seen green grass under my cardboard + 6" of wood chips persist through the winter, and through the following growing season! Not to worry, though... even with the grass persisting, if your mulch is thick enough, the grass won't emerge to be an issue.

Wow, I hope I can get results like that some day. Thanks for the tips!

 

[pennyJo1960]

now you know why my avatar is a squirrel holding an acorn the beaned him