Hügelkultur Raised Beds

[1cock2hens]

My smallest is 3ft wide 4ft tall and 10ft long. My longest is like 60ft long 3ft wide and 3ft tall. My newest is not nearly done but is 5 ft high and 30ft long. My oldest one was 4ft tall 3 ft wide and about 25 ft long, I put it there 9 years ago and it's now just under 4ft tall, grew to 5ft wide and probably shrunk down to 20ft long just because I needed the room to turn trucks around by my pig house. I had one in front of my house that I tried doing it a lazy way and it went from 7ft tall and 15ft round to perfectly flat in like 8 years lol

 

[gtaus]

I think you are mistaking keyhole type raised beds for hugelkulture garden beds. Hugelkulture beds are a defined type of structure and when you deviate from that definition you start to build other things.

Well, I suppose I have mistaken many things in my lifetime.

When I think of a keyhole garden, I think of this...

No doubt there is a difference between various methods of using hügelkultur in different types of beds. For example, this from an online search...

What I practice is the hügelkultur raised bed alternative definition as defined above. I fill the lower half of my 16-inch-high beds with hügelkultur wood and organics, and the top half with topsoil and compost.

I don't dig a hole in the ground and mound up the wood and soil. I am not building a traditional hügelkultur bed in that respect. But I try to use the vocabulary that I find commonly used in the YouTube videos that I watch on the subject of hügelkultur raised beds.

 

[gtaus]

You don't have to limit it to logs only. I throw cardboard, dead pot plants, palm fronds and husks, etc into mine.

Absolutely. You can use just about anything organic as that filler. The benefit to using logs is that they act like a giant sponge, and they take longer to decompose, providing years of benefits to the raised bed. Cardboard, dead plants, etc.. would just decompose faster. The organic layer I add to the top of my wood is basically gone by the end of that first summer. Not a problem. Just top fill with fresh compost as needed.

I have 3 acres of wooded lot, so I always have trees falling down and I need to use up that wood. Better to use it in a hügelkultur raised bed than to burn it in a fire pit.

 

[1cock2hens]

Yes A keyhole garden is typically round and has a wedg cut out of it so the Gardner can tend to the center area. They are raised beds with compost and other yard waste being mainly in the center then covered with soil and added to seasonally. That's why earlier I said it sounded like you are talking about a keyhole bed without the keyhole


I feel like the term "raised hugelkulture bed" is a new thing, I've not come across alot mentioning raised hugelkulture beds by that name until recently. I suspect it was just called something else but still been around for awhile. Probably when permaculture became a trendy thing

 

[TooCheep]

I feel like the term "raised hugelkulture bed" is a new thing, I've not come across alot mentioning raised hugelkulture beds by that name until recently. I suspect it was just called something else but still been around for awhile. Probably when permaculture became a trendy thing

It is just a smaller scale application using the same concepts as hugelkulture mounds. It may not achieve the full benefits of the larger scale versions, but anyone with a modest knowledge of permaculture garden techniques will instantly understand what you are talking about.

 

[1cock2hens]

It is just a smaller scale application using the same concepts as hugelkulture mounds. It may not achieve the full benefits of the larger scale versions, but anyone with a modest knowledge of permaculture garden techniques will instantly understand what you are talking about.

I understand what is trying to be conveyed. It's a rebranding of something, I get it. It's not the terminology that was used 20 years ago and I was just pondering what the original name for that type of bed was.

 

[gtaus]

I feel like the term "raised hugelkulture bed" is a new thing, I've not come across alot mentioning raised hugelkulture beds by that name until recently.

I think recently may be a relative term. I started building hügelkultur raised beds maybe 5 or so years ago. All I ever knew them called was hügelkultur raised beds from the videos I watched on YouTube. Before that, I was not much into gardening.

 

[gtaus]

It is just a smaller scale application using the same concepts as hugelkulture mounds. It may not achieve the full benefits of the larger scale versions, but anyone with a modest knowledge of permaculture garden techniques will instantly understand what you are talking about.

Yep. People even make Hugel pots and planters on much smaller scales. If you understand the hügelkultur method, you understand the concept even when down scaled.

 

[1cock2hens]

I think recently may be a relative term. I started building hügelkultur raised beds maybe 5 or so years ago. All I ever knew them called was hügelkultur raised beds from the videos I watched on YouTube. Before that, I was not much into gardening.

Yes recently as in the past 10 years. traditional hugelkultur has been around for hundreds of years though Hugelkultur as a term didn't even exist till the 60s, before that it was just gardening lol

 

[1cock2hens]

Yep. People even make Hugel pots and planters on much smaller scales. If you understand the hügelkultur method, you understand the concept even when down scaled.

Literally keyhole planters but people are being stubborn about the name and trying to be hip