Hey everyone,
I'm hoping to join in this thread if that is okay. I'm not able to read all 49 pages of the previous discussions but looking forward to participating going forward and share updates on my garden/orchard.
I moved to the coast of NC for a new job last January and we bought a house around April. I had been gardening for the last few years but never had as much land as this property (.5 acre) so I started doing more gardening research and started to learn more about back to eden so I decided this was what I wanted to do.
Although I have a lot of space there was a lot of work to be done to make it usable for gardening. There were lots of big pine trees that I would need to remove to have enough sunlight and space for gardening. In the process of removing the trees I learned about Hugelkultures and thought this was a great solution for making use of some of these trees I was cutting down aside from all the wood chips I'd have.
I've posted a couple of pics of the Hugelkulture. After piling the logs and branches, I first covered with a thick layer of wood chips, then covered with a thick layer of leaf mold/compost. I'm able to get as much leaf compost as I want from the local dump/recycling place. When they pick up leafs from the curbs in the fall it goes in the big pile and its free for anyone to come get. It's good stuff. So far I've planted strawberries on the mound and in a couple months I'll add some more summer annuals.
In the same area beside the Hugelkulture I also have some muscadine grape vines that were already on the property. I've planted blackberries, blueberries, and rasberries in this area also.
On the opposite side of my yard I have my orchard area. I've planted about 25 bare root trees so far. Different varieties of peaches, apples and plums plus a couple of figs and a mulberry in other places. The plan is to keep them pruned small and have many varieties for different harvest times and also different chill hour requirements so I may have some that do good some years and others that do good other years. This area had 3 big trees that took up the whole space before. I cut them down, then covered the entire area with cardboard and wood chips. I plan to also plant some perennials and annuals throughout this area too like a food forest.
Then I have my main garden area for annuals, although i have some blueberries here as well. It's a little bigger than what you can see here but this is the setup. I made beds of the leaf compost and then covered it all with wood chips.
I planted some potatoes under the wood chips back in the fall and they are already sprouting up. I've got a ton of pepper and tomatoes plants started in pots and will transplant most of them here come late March or April.
My next goal is to try to get more wood chips dropped off this spring once the trees have leaves on them and apply more wood chips in all of these areas.
Looking forward to posting more updates this year and seeing other peoples' gardens.
