Hügelkultur Raised Beds

[McChooky]

Didn't they have insurance?
They should have replaced it

I would have had to sued my brother to collect. He worked for him and sent the guy up here on his equipment to do the work for me.
They didn't charge me for the job after they destroyed it

 

[gtaus]

I made a rocket stove outdoor Pizza oven about 8 years ago when I retired...

That was a very nice looking Pizza oven. When I was stationed in Napels, Italy, back in the 1990's, our Italian landlord had an outdoor pizza oven. I don't think it was a rocket stove, but it cooked the pizzas to perfection.

As much as I like our American pizzas, they just don't compare to the pizzas we got in Naples. They were the best, especially when cooked on the stone of those outdoor pizza ovens. We really liked the Italian food when we were there.

Dear Wife has an Italian cookbook that we bought at a cooking class/party with other American service members. It was written by an American woman who married an Italian man and had been living in Naples for something like 25 years. She wrote the cookbook with Italian recipes but with ingredients that we can get back here in the states. Obviously, some items are just impossible to get here in the states, but her suggestions for substitutes come pretty close.

Anyways, one of those recipes was sliced eggplant with a vinegar type dressing and herbs. I was no fan of eggplant until I tried that eggplant dish. Now, it is one of the main plants I grow in my raised bed gardens. But I have to put a wire cage over the plants because the squirrels will eat all the eggplants if given a chance.

Here is a picture of one protective cage I built to put on my raised beds. It was repurposed lumber and chicken wire, but it should do the job to keep out the squirrels, rabbits and deer...

I had to build a protective cage for each raised bed. All my pallet wood raised beds are 4X4 feet, so I can swap out the cages on any of the beds. I have some cages that are 2 feet tall, some 3 feet tall, and a few at 4 feet tall, depending on what I plant in the raised bed.

For my tomato plants growing up a rope on a trellis, I made some chicken wire wood panels to put inside the frame...

I have to make more of those panels this year. If not, the deer will eat all the tomatoes they can reach.

 

[McChooky]

That was a very nice looking Pizza oven. When I was stationed in Napels, Italy, back in the 1990's, our Italian landlord had an outdoor pizza oven. I don't think it was a rocket stove, but it cooked the pizzas to perfection.

As much as I like our American pizzas, they just don't compare to the pizzas we got in Naples. They were the best, especially when cooked on the stone of those outdoor pizza ovens. We really liked the Italian food when we were there.

Dear Wife has an Italian cookbook that we bought at a cooking class/party with other American service members. It was written by an American woman who married an Italian man and had been living in Naples for something like 25 years. She wrote the cookbook with Italian recipes but with ingredients that we can get back here in the states. Obviously, some items are just impossible to get here in the states, but her suggestions for substitutes come pretty close.

Anyways, one of those recipes was sliced eggplant with a vinegar type dressing and herbs. I was no fan of eggplant until I tried that eggplant dish. Now, it is one of the main plants I grow in my raised bed gardens. But I have to put a wire cage over the plants because the squirrels will eat all the eggplants if given a chance.

Here is a picture of one protective cage I built to put on my raised beds. It was repurposed lumber and chicken wire, but it should do the job to keep out the squirrels, rabbits and deer...

View attachment 4076240

I had to build a protective cage for each raised bed. All my pallet wood raised beds are 4X4 feet, so I can swap out the cages on any of the beds. I have some cages that are 2 feet tall, some 3 feet tall, and a few at 4 feet tall, depending on what I plant in the raised bed.

For my tomato plants growing up a rope on a trellis, I made some chicken wire wood panels to put inside the frame...

View attachment 4076254

I have to make more of those panels this year. If not, the deer will eat all the tomatoes they can reach.

How wonderful it is to grow your own food! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Sally PB]

When I was in-ground gardening, I would use trench composting, digging a furrow alongside my plants, and put our kitchen scraps in the furrow. It's a very efficient way to make compost.

My neighbor (who introduced me to the concept of hugelkultur) used to live in Virginia (or maybe WV?) and her garden plot was red clay. Every few days, she took her kitchen scraps and buried them in a trench. She said by the next garden season, she had lovely, dark, loose, rich soil. Her neighbor thought she'd brought in topsoil, it was so different from what it had been.

 

[Molpet]

I would have had to sued my brother to collect. He worked for him and sent the guy up here on his equipment to do the work for me.
They didn't charge me for the job after they destroyed it

Ah yes that's different

 

[gtaus]

My neighbor (who introduced me to the concept of hugelkultur) used to live in Virginia (or maybe WV?) and her garden plot was red clay. Every few days, she took her kitchen scraps and buried them in a trench. She said by the next garden season, she had lovely, dark, loose, rich soil. Her neighbor thought she'd brought in topsoil, it was so different from what it had been.

Yes, trench composting is a great way to use up those kitchen scraps. In my case, I live on a lake and my soil was very sandy. I had a hard time growing plants in the sand. The trench composting was working for me as evidenced by creating blacker soil with worms and other life in it.

I would alternate growing plants with a trench compost alongside it one year, then the next year plant in that furrow and create a trench compost row where I had previously grown plants. Just moving my planting rows back and forth.

You can certainly use trench composting in any raised bed. I think it would apply equally as well. However, I now have chickens, and they get to eat all our kitchen scraps. I compost their coop litter and chicken run litter and use that Black Gold compost in my raised bed gardens.

Back in the day, years ago, we considered all our kitchen scraps and unwanted leftovers as garbage waste that we hauled out to the landfill. But over time I learned about composting and turned that waste product into something useful. Not only kitchen scraps, but all the grass clippings, leaves, and pulled weeds we created on our property used to be hauled out to the landfill. That's just what people did. Now, however, I don't think anything organic has left my property in about 15 years. It all gets composted at home.

 

[McChooky]

Ah yes that's different

Never defeated ! After building a pallet greenhouse where the pizza oven sat I planted some beautiful white flowers .3 years later they were mowed down to make the chickens a sunbathing spot out front

 

[fuzzi]

My neighbor (who introduced me to the concept of hugelkultur) used to live in Virginia (or maybe WV?) and her garden plot was red clay. Every few days, she took her kitchen scraps and buried them in a trench. She said by the next garden season, she had lovely, dark, loose, rich soil. Her neighbor thought she'd brought in topsoil, it was so different from what it had been.

When we moved to South Carolina we encountered Red Clay for the first time. The rototiller bounced off the surface of the ground, we had to borrow a friend's TroyBilt "Pony". My dh said it was as hard as adobe brick.

Just outside our front door I was trying to make a small flower garden but was stymied by the clay. My dh came up with the idea of using our blender to puree watermelon rinds and other vegetable/fruit leftovers, then pouring the puree into a small hole. We did this repeatedly. Within a short time (a couple months?) the soil in my new flower garden was loose, and dark, and GORGEOUS.

My mother used to take kitchen scraps out to her garden and dig them in next to her plants. We had a lot of "volunteer" potato plants, ha!

 

[Molpet]

When we moved to South Carolina we encountered Red Clay for the first time. The rototiller bounced off the surface of the ground, we had to borrow a friend's TroyBilt "Pony". My dh said it was as hard as adobe brick.

Just outside our front door I was trying to make a small flower garden but was stymied by the clay. My dh came up with the idea of using our blender to puree watermelon rinds and other vegetable/fruit leftovers, then pouring the puree into a small hole. We did this repeatedly. Within a short time (a couple months?) the soil in my new flower garden was loose, and dark, and GORGEOUS.

My mother used to take kitchen scraps out to her garden and dig them in next to her plants. We had a lot of "volunteer" potato plants, ha!

They have found the natives in the Amazon did the same.

https://news.mit.edu/2023/ancient-amazonians-intentionally-created-fertile-dark-earth-0920

 

[McChooky]

My electric fence post digger just bounced off the red clay in NC about a foot down (requiring a tamping bar and sledge hammer)We don't have the same type of clay here(WV)The rocks are a pain