Hügelkultur Raised Beds

[gtaus]

New YouTube video on 3-year Review of Hügelkultur Raised Bed

Over the years, I have become a big advocate for the hügelkultur method to use in raised beds. It just works for me. I understand the theory of the hügelkultur method, but does it deliver in actual use?

I want to share a link to the following video where they tear apart a 3-year-old hügelkultur raised bed and take a good look at how it is performing. If you are not convinced to give hügelkultur raised beds a try now, you probably will want to consider it after watching this 10-minute video...

A few points that I think are worth noting again:

He used freshly cut logs in his hügelkultur build. That works, and after 3 years in the raised bed, they could see the wood softening up and becoming more spongy, which holds water better. As the wood ages and breaks down, it feeds the soil and retains water better. Based on their 3 year look, they estimated that the wood logs in that bed might be good for about 20 years!

I use freshly cut wood if I have to clean up the yard. I had 2 big trees fall down last winter and used the wood to make some new raised beds this spring. Why not? However, if you want even better results earlier, then pick out some old rotting logs to start with.

The hügelkultur beds get better with age. As the wood decomposes, it feeds the soil from below. The rotting wood also retains more water as it continues to turn into a giant sponge. I have seen this in my hügelkultur beds as well. They just seem to perform better with each passing year.

He mentioned that his first attempt at making hügelkultur raised beds was not a complete success. Basically, he failed to adequately fill the voids between the logs and his raised bed soil level dropped almost 1 foot the first year! That is just crazy!

After he figured out that it was necessary to fill those voids between the logs, then the soil level dropped the normal 1-2 inches per year. That is what you want. Every year, you just top off that 1-2 inches with fresh compost. Perfect!

As to filling those voids, he used potting mix, which I find is pretty expensive. I can get free wood chips at our local county landfill, and that is what I use to fill the voids Still free for me to use as a filler, and being wood, it will also sponge up the water and break down over the years feeding the soil. What's not to love about that?

I'd love to hear any feedback on this video, and if you have any ideas on how to make hügelkultur raised beds even better. I have had great results with my hügelkultur raised beds, but I'm always looking to make improvements. Thanks.

Addendum: I originally posted this on the What did you do in the garden today? thread. But that thread moves too fast, topics are quickly forgotten, and I thought this topic might be better served if I started a separate thread.

 

[DLA]

I did some hugelkultur beds a few years ago in my garden. I had an old woodpile I needed to get rid of as we no longer use the wood burner for heating. I didn't do anything so fancy or as pretty as their metal beds as the goal was to get rid of old logs and save money so not buying anything. I tacked the beds together with old pieces of lumber and stuff left from other projects. They might not last as long as the metal ones but I can always patch them with any scrap lumber I have around. They've held up really well, I haven't had to do any repairs so far. Some of the logs I used in the bottom were partially rotted already but it did really work great. I didn't have to water the beds except once or twice thru the whole summer as the logs absorbed and held plenty of moisture. I used existing soil, stuff from the compost pile and what I cleaned out from my deep litter in my run and coop to fill them. I added same as needed to counter any settling. I've been very pleased with the results, plants in them did much better than what I planted in the regular soil. Overall, I would highly recommend this method of gardening. Better growth, less water use, no tilling, raised beds are easier to harvest from.

 

[SueT]

I’m setting up some raised beds now, thanks for this!

 

[TooCheep]

Nice. Thanks for the thread. I haven't wanted to build hügel mounds in my small yard, but I'm going to add a 3rd raised bed this next year and this info will be very helpful.

 

[gtaus]

I some did hugelkultur beds a few years ago in my garden. I had an old woodpile I needed to get rid of as we no longer use the wood burner for heating. I didn't do anything so fancy or as pretty as their metal beds as the goal was to get rid of old logs and save money so not buying anything. I tacked the beds together with old pieces of lumber and stuff left from other projects. They might not last as long as the metal ones but I can always patch them with any scrap lumber I have around. They've held up really well, I haven't had to do any repairs so far. Some of the logs I used in the bottom were partially rotted already but it did really work great. I didn't have to water the beds except once or twice thru the whole summer as the logs absorbed and held plenty of moisture. I used existing soil, stuff from the compost pile and what I cleaned out from my deep litter in my run and coop to fill them. I added same as needed to counter any settling. I've been very pleased with the results, plants in them did much better than what I planted in the regular soil. Overall, I would highly recommend this method of gardening. Better growth, less water use, no tilling, raised beds are easier to harvest from.

Sounds similar to my experience. Old rotten logs will actually work better in the raised bed because they retain more water. New logs work great, as shown in the YouTube video, but as the logs age and decompose, they just get better at retaining water and feeding the soil.

I really became an advocate for hügelkultur raised beds a few years ago when we had a terrible drought summer. I don't have running water out in the main garden. We did not have any rainfall from about mid-May to about sometime in September. All my in-ground plants dried up and died, as well as all my plants in my "normal" non-hügelkultur raised beds. The only plants that survived were in my hügelkultur raised beds. I estimate I got maybe 70% of a normal harvest that year from the hügelkultur raised beds, but compare that to 0% from the in-ground and "normal" non-hügelkultur raised beds.

 

[gtaus]

Better growth, less water use, no tilling, raised beds are easier to harvest from.

I’m setting up some raised beds now, thanks for this!

Nice. Thanks for the thread. I haven't wanted to build hügel mounds in my small yard, but I'm going to add a 3rd raised bed this next year and this info will be very helpful.

If you want to save some money by building your raised beds, I posted my pallet wood raised bed v2.0 build on the thread Show Me Your Pallet Projects!. There are lots of other great pallet projects there as well.

To save time and effort, I'll just copy that specific post on how I built that pallet wood raised bed - which cost me less than $2.00 for the 16-inch high 4X4 foot bed.

************

Pallet Wood 4X4 Foot, 16 Inch High, Raised Garden Bed - New Design

Time to upload some pictures of my newly designed pallet wood raised garden bed. I was plenty happy with my old raised bed design, but I specifically wanted to redo this design to use the pallet wood notched 2X4 stretchers without cutting them. With that in mind, I took apart some pallets that had 4 foot long 2X4's, all of the same thickness, or very close to it. The beauty of this step is that you don't need to have the 2X4's nail free in this build. That means, you can use a reciprocating saw to cut off the pallet planks if you want and just leave the nail bottoms in the 2X4's. Or you can use a circular saw to cut off the edges of the planks and just use the shorter 16 inch long slats for the sidewalls. Both those methods make pallet breakdown fast.

First pic, you can see how I framed up the raised bed with the notched pallet wood 2X4's.

Notice how I orientated the 2X4's so the notches on both the top and bottom have the notches in the middle. That becomes important later when I nail on the sidewall slats.

For those of you that know something about putting butt joints together, they are not considered a very strong connection. Here is what I mean...

As you look at the above picture, you can see the screws go into the end grain of the other 2X4. Although this is a strong connection today, it will not stand up over time and those screws can (and most likely will) pull out of the end grain wood.

Knowing that this butt end connection is the weak point in this design, I made some corner posts out of 2X4's, attached to each other, and then attached them to the outside frame - screwing from the inside.

That should make the basic frame a lot stronger and not fall apart over the years to come.

Now I added all the 16 inch pallet planks I have cut from my pallet wood breakdowns. This process took very little time as the planks were already cut to 16 inches long. I simply started at one corner and started laying down wood planks working my way to the end of that side. I used my 18 gauge brad nailer to fasten the planks to the 2X4's. An 18 gauge brad nail is not that strong, but in this design, all it needs to do is to attched the plank so it does not fall down. When I fill up the garden bed with soil, the weight of the soil will be pushing outwards, so the weight of the soil will assist in holding the planks in place. Also, using the brad nailer takes no time at all to bump and shoot. Of course, a person could either nail or screw those planks in place if you don't have a nail gun.

Now, here is a point that I want to stress... It's important to have the basic framing on the outside of the raised bed and the planks on the inside. When you add the soil, it will push the planks into the 2X4 outside frame and everything should hold together. Some people will reverse this process, making the 2X4 frame as the inside, and then tacking on the planks to the outside. Of course, that will work and will look just fine - for a short while - but in a few years the weight of the soil will push out on the planks on the outside of the frame and you will have multiple blowouts to repair. Remember, the wood is going to rot over time and the nails, screws, etc will no longer hold the planks if on the outside. No doubt, my pallet wood raised bed will also rot out over time, but it should last many years longer with the design of the planks on the inside of the frame.

As you can see, I attempted to alternate between light and dark colored planks, because that is the look I wanted. Notice that one corner on each side has a gap board missing.

When I laid out the planks, I made sure that the gap was an even distance from the 2X4 corner pieces. That meant I did not have to make any special taper cuts. So, I just had to rip final boards for 2 inches, 2-1/2 inches, 1-1/4 inches, etc... All straight rips that were very easy to measure and cut on the table saw.

Besides the aesthetics of having the notches in the 2X4's facing each other, it makes it very easy to nail the planks on the sidewalls just about an inch from the top/bottom where you know there is no notch to worry about. I did not want to shoot a nail into the notch void and then have to remove the nail.

Final boards added to each corner...

OK, the build was done at this point and all in all, I would say that it was faster and easier than my previous designs.

Here is a picture of the new pallet wood garden bed design compared to the pallet wood garden bed design I built last year.

Time to setup the garden bed, and I got most of it done today. I use the hügelkultur method in my raised beds. I recently cut up some pines trees that died and fell over this past winter. I used the tree trunk logs to line the bottom of the raised bed. The idea is that the wood will act like a giant sponge and soak up water, releasing it later to the plants when they need it. As the logs decay over the years, their effect as a giant sponge improves. Eventually, the wood breaks down and feeds the soil, which in turn feeds the plants growing above.

After the heavy logs, I tossed in some smaller branches and dumped in a load of aged wood chips I needed to clear out. Here is where I ended today....

What's left is the top ~8 inches which I will fill with a high-quality topsoil and chicken run compost mixed 1:1. I used to be able to get vermiculite for my raised bed mixes, but I can't get large 3 cubic foot bags of comercial vermiculite anymore. Small bags of garden vermiculite would be far too expensive - on my budget. So, I talked to the main guy at our local nursery, and he told me just to mix the chicken run compost and topsoil 1:1.

I had a little more time before it got dark, so I filled up my new 8 cubic foot "Gorilla-like" cart with some chicken run compost - you can see the chicken coop and run in the background of the first picture. Anyways, take a look at this black gold compost from my chicken run...

I have to say that I get really excited about my chicken run compost because it's just so much better than what I used to buy at the big box stores. Mostly, it's a combination of leaves, grass clippings, maybe some wood chips or paper shreds from the coop litter, and of course, chicken poo mixed in. If you like the smell of rich, dark, earth, you would really like this compost.

I will be sifting this compost with my cement mixer compost sifter and then mixing it with the topsoil. Then, I'll top off the new garden bed(s) with about 8 inches of the compost/topsoil mix. I plan on building at least one more pallet wood garden bed this spring but would really like to make four new beds in total.

If you made it this far, I would love to hear some feedback on this new pallet wood raised bed design. I put a number of hours of thinking into this project before I put it together but would love to hear any comments others may have. Thanks in advance for your thoughts. Later....

 

[gtaus]

And here is a picture of one of my hügelkultur pallet wood raised beds after planting some tomatoes in it...

 

[townchicks]

I think I will be trying this next spring. It's great to have easy access to this video, thanks.

 

[akroberts1085]

I'm going to try to hugelkultur my bed I am going to make with my rocks. I'm also going to make some raised beds out of wood scraps from the remodeling and then hopefully it will just be a case of plant it and done. Thank you for sharing this. I will be referring to the videos in this thread.

 

[TooCheep]

I'm going to try to hugelkultur my bed I am going to make with my rocks. I'm also going to make some raised beds out of wood scraps from the remodeling and then hopefully it will just be a case of plant it and done. Thank you for sharing this. I will be referring to the videos in this thread.

Not sure that is a great idea. People use logs because they aren't treated with nasty chemicals. Avoid any painted or chemically treated wood.