Hügelkultur Raised Beds

[gtaus]

I would share. But they seem to want to take it all. I've trapped a few critters, and a dozen or so chipmunks. We'll be reinforcing the fence next year, or maybe so some this fall.

I'm considering building some raised beds and putting 1/2" hardware cloth at the bottom, under the hugel wood, to keep out the moles, mice, voles, and anything else that can come up through the soil.

I have been building pallet wood cages with chicken wire on the sides and top to cover my raised beds. That keeps out the squirrels and rabbits. But it's really been a tough year for me, too. Next year I will be planting and covering with protective cages at the start. I hope that helps.

This is the first year I have had so much damage due to varmints. I don't know why this year is any different, but someone mentioned that our mild winter last year resulted in a bumper crop of varmints this spring.

I do not seem to have much of a problem with critters coming up from underneath the raised bed hügelkultur logs, but if I did, I think hardware cloth would solve that problem. My attacks, this year, are all from above the ground varmints.

I did see some burrows in one raised bed and wondered if it was from moles, mice, or voles, but I looked it up online and determined that I had chipmunk burrows. And yes, I have lots of chipmunks this year running around my property.

Like you, I would not mind sharing a small portion of my garden's goods, but whatever varmints are in my raised beds have been digging out plants in whole and/or stripping the leaves off killing the entire plant. That's not sharing!

 

[Sally PB]

In my sandy soil garden, the tomato plants look wilted and half dead, despite the rain. I can only guess that something is eating the roots.

The clay soil garden? The 'mater plants look GREAT!

Thank goodness the canning tomato plants are all in the clay soil garden!

My idea with the hardware cloth is to keep the burrowing critters from coming up from below. I have had this problem before, but definitely NOT to this extent.

 

[DuckLady]

@gtaus and @Sally PB, I'm sorry you are having such a hard time this year with rude critters. Knowing how much time, work and money goes into maintaining a growing garden, you both must be disappointed and devastated. At our first house in Oregon, I remember babying a tiny patch of asparagus and a week after getting 2 spears, my gander got in there and ate the rest. He did the same to my carefully tended cherry tree that had 3 cherries on it the first and only year it bore fruit.

We have been waffling all afternoon about what to do with our tiny bounty. We decided on BLT's with shaved onion on home made sourdough and saute-ing the "squish" (because it's not really very big ) in bacon grease with more onion.

 

[Sally PB]

I keep reminding myself that even if I lose a lot of garden produce to the critters, we will not starve this winter.

If I don't get enough tomatoes to can, I can buy a bushel. If the potatoes are a bust, well, they're cheap to buy in the store.

At least I have plenty of garlic.

It's the self satisfaction that they are really taking from me. But the beans... yeah, you blankety-blank varmints...

 

[gtaus]

In my sandy soil garden, the tomato plants look wilted and half dead, despite the rain. I can only guess that something is eating the roots.

I live on a lake. My tomato plants never did very well in the sandy ground soil. But then I got into raised beds, using the hügelkultur setup, and topped off the final 6-8 inches of the bed with a quality topsoil and chicken run compost mixed 1:1. Since then, my results have been excellent.

 

[gtaus]

Knowing how much time, work and money goes into maintaining a growing garden, you both must be disappointed and devastated.

Disappointed, yes. Devastated, not yet. I still have lots of other stuff coming along fine and that keeps me going. I learned a lot of lessons from the critter destruction this year and next year I will have my plants protected from the start with my new pallet wood protective cages with chicken wire.

A few years ago I went to a gardening meeting. An older lady, master gardener, told us to plant more than we need and to plant a variety of different crops. Some years one type of plant will grow better than others, and the next year it might be the opposite. You lose some goods to varmints, others to weather. So, just be thankful for what you get and try again the next year with lessons learned from this year.

Speaking of little successes, Dear Wife picked a half colander full of fresh green beans from my back deck elevated sub-irrigated planter. That's officially the first real harvest for us this year, although I have been picking a few green onions as needed for a few weeks.

 

[DuckLady]

I hope to add another bed next year. I only planted 3 tomato plants and a pony pack of onions in the raised bed. Looking at it, you would think all I had in there was one cherry tomato plant. It exploded during the record heat we have been getting.

I have a pile of logs ready to go into a new bed. I’d like to add garlic, carrots, radishes and peas.

 

[gtaus]

I keep reminding myself that even if I lose a lot of garden produce to the critters, we will not starve this winter.

If I don't get enough tomatoes to can, I can buy a bushel. If the potatoes are a bust, well, they're cheap to buy in the store.

That's the spirit. I grow my vegetables because they just seem to taste better fresh out of my garden. But Dear Wife and I will not suffer too much if we have to buy the produce at the big box store, or the Amish market on Saturday mornings.

I have the same attitude towards gardening as I do to keeping a small backyard flock of chickens. Probably not worth the time and energy considering the cost of eggs and produce at the store, but our fresh eggs and vegetables just seem better when produced at home.

 

[gtaus]

I hope to add another bed next year. ... I have a pile of logs ready to go into a new bed.

Love to hear it. Would only like to mention that the sooner you add that hügelkultur bed, the better off you will be. In my experience, my hügelkultur beds get better with age. If you can set up the hügelkultur bed this year, let it sit over the winter, and then top it off before planting next year, you will have a jump start on the whole process.

 

[Sally PB]

I live on a lake. My tomato plants never did very well in the sandy ground soil. But then I got into raised beds, using the hügelkultur setup, and topped off the final 6-8 inches of the bed with a quality topsoil and chicken run compost mixed 1:1. Since then, my results have been excellent.

This isn't due to the soil, I'm fairly sure. I've grown tomatoes down there (it's downhill from the house) for many years, and gotten LOADS of cherry tomatoes from huge plants. The chicken poop compost has really helped. Now the plants look great for awhile, then they look like they're going through a drought.