Hügelkultur Raised Beds

[gtaus]

Interesting idea. But wood is free, wood chips are not.

Yes, I have lots of free wood like fallen trees, etc... So, that is what I would use as well. But you might be able to get your wood chips for free as well.

It took me awhile, but I found that I could get all the free wood chips I could ever want or use at our local county landfill. They are just natural wood chips dumped off by arborists to get rid of them.

It only takes me about 15-20 minutes with a good 12-tine fork to fill up my small 4X8 foot 1-foot-high wall utility trailer. And I don't even break a sweat doing it. It's not too hard even for an old guy like me.

Chip drop
https://support.getchipdrop.com/article/35-is-chipdrop-active-in-my-area

That's a great option if there is anyone in your area that participates in the program. I know the arborists where I live have to pay a dumping fee at the landfill to get rid of their woodchips. So you would think it would be worth their time to do a chip drop at your place if they are in your area.

The only negative thing I have heard is that you might get a lot more woodchips than you wanted. Some of those arborists have big truck beds that hold a whole lot of wood chips. If they dump their load, they want it all dumped at once.

I signed up for Chip Drop years ago when I first learned about it. But I live out in the country and there was nobody locally in the program. When I found out I could get all the free wood chips I wanted at the county landfill, I took my name of the Chip Drop list and just fill up my trailer with a load from the landfill when I need it.

I certainly would not advocate for buying bags of mulch (wood chips) at the big box stores for a hügelkultur raised bed. I think that would be more expensive than buying bags of soil!

 

[gtaus]

Just a little update on some of my new hügelkultur raised beds...

This winter, in my garage, I built another four 4X4 foot pallet wood raised beds. I have just put them into place and leveled each bed off. My garden area there is on a slope, so the ground is not level, but the individual raised beds are now level.

The raised beds might not look even in the following photo, but they are. They just are not level with each other, if that makes sense. And the angle of this photo distorts some of the perspective, too...

The fourth raised bed is not in this photo. It went at the end of another row in the garden.

I have since filled up all the raised beds with hügelkultur logs for the base. Later, I will add a layer of organic materials to fill in the gaps, then the top 6-8 inches will be filled with a topsoil and chicken run compost mixed 1:1.

Here is a picture of one of my new pallet wood raised beds filled with logs...

As you can see, there are still lots of gaps and spaces to fill in. So, I dumped about five 5-gallon buckets full of pallet wood scraps into this bed. This was a suggestion from the Show Me Your Pallet Projects thread.

Previously, I was just burning those scrap pieces of wood in a fire ring. Makes more sense for me to use them in a hügelkultur raised bed. Wood is wood.

I also built a couple of 2X4 foot raised beds that I put along the backside of my chicken run fence...

My idea is to plant pole beans on the fence side, and maybe some shade plants like lettuce, kale, Swiss chard, etc.. away from the fence to fill up the space.

Imagine, if you will, having pole beans growing up that 6-foot-tall chicken run fencing and up and over on to the bird netting on top of the run. Then, lots of other plants to fill in the rest of the beds. That's my vision.

Since that picture, I have those two beds filled with logs as well. Those beds are coming together on schedule.

I could put another 8 feet of raised beds along that back fence if I want. I would have to build more raised beds, but that is fine with me.

In case I have not mentioned it before on this thread, it costs me less than $2.00 to build my pallet wood raised beds. The pallet wood is free, and I only pay for new screws for the 2X4 framing and brad nails for the boards on the side walls.

I have poor native soil where I live on lakeside property, so I have to buy a trailer full of topsoil from a local nursery. Dirt is not cheap. At least, quality topsoil is not cheap.

I paid about $60.00 last year for a bobcat scoop of topsoil. I figured that, after I fill the bottom half of the raised beds with hügelkultur wood, I end up spending maybe $10.00 per bed on the topsoil I use. I mix my topsoil with my chicken run compost in a 1:1 ratio. That reduces the amount of soil needed for the raised beds. If I did not use my free chicken run compost, I suspect I could double the cost of the topsoil fill to about $20.00 per 4X4 foot raised bed.

In any case, I have learned that it is better for me to spend some money upfront and get high quality topsoil for my raised beds and have plants that grown strong and healthy, providing lots of food to harvest. Nothing much grew well in my sandy native soil.

In theory, over time, the hügelkultur wood breaks down and feeds the soil making it better. But I don't want to wait years and years for that process to happen. So, I fill the top half of all my hügelkultur raised beds with that 1:1 mixture of high-quality topsoil and chicken run compost. My garden beds start off good, and only get better over time with all that hügelkultur wood in the bottom feeding the soil as it breaks down.