Hügelkultur Raised Beds

[fuzzi]

I know what you mean. I have done that myself on all kinds of fencing. Works great most of the time.

Having said that, I think I'm moving to using zip ties these days for many things. Easier to work with. I only take out the heavy wire if something really needs all that extra strength.

Have you ever been poked by bending that wire over to attach fencing together? I have. One time I even got poked through my leather glove. The was no fun. In contrast, I have never been poked by a zip tie.

I don't recall any serious poke from my wire fencing.

Now HARDWARE CLOTH is another thing! I had puncture wounds and bruising through my clothing from that fencing.

 

[SueT]

Looks like wire cutters to me...

Not for wire! It even says on them “fur Plastik”. So yeah you can use regular wire cutters for zip ties, but these cutters are only for plastic, and they cut them truly flush.

 

[LaurenRitz]

An alternate solution (which I will be using), will be to plant annuals for the first year or two and then plant perennials.

Plant your spreading perennials around the base. They'll be well established once the mound is ready. Until then use the mound for annuals.

 

[gtaus]

I use zip ties for everything too. I buy large bags of them in every size. My hubby got me a little zip tie cutter that will trim them flush so that nothing sharp sticks out.
I am very careful about picking up all cut ends, broken ties, etc, so there isn’t any ‘trash’ on the ground.
View attachment 3701780

I had never seen those pliers before, but I found it on Amazon. Looks like some high-end quality German tool.

As you mentioned, it is made primarily for soft materials like plastic. It's not a wire cutter that so many of us might have assumed.

 

[gtaus]

Plant your spreading perennials around the base. They'll be well established once the mound is ready. Until then use the mound for annuals.

I have never made a Heugel mound, but I wonder if the mounds have so much settling those first 2-3 years because the voids are not filled or packed in as tight as what I might do with my hügelkultur raised beds when I water in the soil to fill the voids, or pack in wood chips in the voids.

I think there might be some basic construction challenges with trying to fill the voids in a large pile of logs in a Heugel mound compared to maybe only 8 inches of logs in the bottom of a raised bed. In that case, I would expect more settling in the Heugel mound compared to the raised bed.

I do like the idea of making a Heugel mound 5 foot tall and planting up the sides. If I had a tractor to move big logs around the yard, I'd certainly try to build a Heugel mound.

But I don't have a tractor so I am limited to logs that I can pick up and put into a wagon, and then arrange into the raised beds. My hügelkultur beds drop about 1-2 inches per year. I made a mistake putting strawberries in a new hügelkultur raised bed. I think I should have waited a few years, like you said, just to give the bed some time to settle out.

 

[gtaus]

I came upon a newer (7-month old) YouTube video on how to fill a hügelkultur raised bed on the Canadian Permaculture Legacy channel. He talks about many topics related to hügelkultur raised beds, such as voids, moles and voles, wood breakdown, layering, biochar, and he even shows how to build in a few worm towers for in situ vermicomposting.

If you are new to the concept of hügelkultur raised beds, this 24-minute YouTube video tutorial shows you step by step how he fills his beds. Also, his raised bed is about 30 inches tall, so he has many layers of wood and organics in his raised beds. That might be interesting for someone planning on building a tall raised bed.

In contrast, my pallet wood raised bed v2.0 that I am building is 16-inches high. So, basically, I have one layer of hügelkultur wood of about 8-10 inches high, then covered with a topsoil/compost mixture for growing the plants.

I feed all our kitchen scraps and leftovers to the chickens directly, but I thought the idea of incorporating worm towers into the raised bed was a nice addition for people who don't have chickens but could use another method of composting their kitchen scraps and leftovers instead of tossing them in the garbage.

I know there are lots of YouTube videos now on hügelkultur raised beds, but I thought this was one of the better ones I have seen for a newbie. Lots of topics discussed in a single 24-minute video. Might also be a good review for those of you who have been practicing the hügelkultur method of raised beds for years.

 

[gtaus]

In the comments section of the YouTube video I just provided in the link above, there was a side discussion on using galvanized steel in the raised beds. This was of interest to me, because I built 4 raised beds with galvanized steel sides back a few years ago when the cost of lumber was sky high. By just using lumber for the raised bed framing, the galvanized steel panels dropped my cost from about $200 for an all-wood design at that time down to about $40 per bed using galvanized steel panels for the sides.

Obviously, the price of lumber has come down dramatically since then, but I know there are still a lot of people using galvanized steel to make raised beds because of the low cost and expected long life of the metal. Anyway, the topic was addressed about using galvanized steel in a raised bed and if there is any leeching of toxic materials into the soil. I won't pretend to fully understand it all, so I just copied the response from the author of the video...

Well, that is too small for me to read, so here is that text copied and pasted...

*****

Just a side discussion I want to have on galvanized steel. Galvainization is done using Zinc, and the Zinc is used as a sacrificial plating, so that it gets eaten instead of the steel. Unfortunately, it can also have some other nasties in it like lead and cadmium in the molten zinc dip process.

We had a few people bring this up, and I think it's worth having an expanded discussion on - thank you kindly for the concern!

Using old galvanized steel like this should be done with caution, but it can be done. The leeching rate of the toxins only happens when the coating is exposed to both extreme moisture and also acidic conditions, which are unlikely to be present in your raised bed. However, to be extra safe, we can take some precautions.

For us, we made sure to orient the tin coating on the outside of the bed, so that there is never any soil contact. We will also monitor our soil and test for these things (but I do not expect to find them). We also made sure that the interior of the beds were in good condition (i.e. the metal wasn't rusting through, getting access to the coating on the outside from the inside - soil). On one panel there was a little backside rust, and we made sure to orient that on the bottom of the bed, and surround it with gravel to give better drainage there. I'm honestly not too worried about it.

However, it's important that we know that's something that we should be considering in our designs. For example, as much as I am okay with using the metal in this way, I wouldn't be okay with orienting the paint on the inside of the bed, in direct soil contact. That would likely still be okay, as long as the soil pH isn't overly acidic, but it's still just another barrier I'd like to have, so we might as well be extra safe. If I had no choice but to do that, then I would line the bed with greenhouse poly (making sure there is drainage at the bottom of course), however I wouldn't really want to rely on that never getting damaged, so I would probably just avoid it.

If someone feels that's even not a risk they'd like to take, then I would recommend avoiding using any galvanized coated metal at all, but as I said, almost all resources that I found which were well cited and referenced with research/science, it was stated that it was something to be aware of, but not to be overly concerned with. Just don't add aluminum sulphate to make the soil acidic and then grow blueberries in that bed.

*****

Would love to hear any thoughts on this issue as it pertains to raised beds. Personally, I am not too worried about leeching. But I know some gardeners might have concerns that they want to express.

 

[Sally PB]

Talking about acidic soil... was there any mention of the actual pH? Blueberries like it really acidic, pH 4.5-5.5; most plants don't like that level of acidity.

Most of my soil is at least slightly acidic, in the 6.0-6.5 range. I have my blueberries in a separate area, so I can acidify that as much as possible. I thought all the oak leaves I was using as compost would take care of it... nope, it tested nearly neutral! So I bought some soil acidifier and have been adding that twice a year. I checked last spring, and it was under 6.0, so making progress. I added another round of acidifier at the end of the season.

I should have checked the pH in the fall...

 

[gtaus]

Talking about acidic soil... was there any mention of the actual pH?

When you use lots of natural compost, I believe the pH moves to neutral. I don't know if that was specifically mentioned in the video I linked, but it's something I have heard over and over again in many places.

So I bought some soil acidifier and have been adding that twice a year. I checked last spring, and it was under 6.0, so making progress. I added another round of acidifier at the end of the season.

If you need acidic soil, like for blueberries, then I suspect you would have to use some kind of acidifier as an amendment to a composted soil. The plants I grow want a neutral pH soil, so the fresh compost I add every year works great for me.

 

[fuzzi]

In the comments section of the YouTube video I just provided in the link above, there was a side discussion on using galvanized steel in the raised beds. This was of interest to me, because I built 4 raised beds with galvanized steel sides back a few years ago when the cost of lumber was sky high. By just using lumber for the raised bed framing, the galvanized steel panels dropped my cost from about $200 for an all-wood design at that time down to about $40 per bed using galvanized steel panels for the sides.

Obviously, the price of lumber has come down dramatically since then, but I know there are still a lot of people using galvanized steel to make raised beds because of the low cost and expected long life of the metal. Anyway, the topic was addressed about using galvanized steel in a raised bed and if there is any leeching of toxic materials into the soil. I won't pretend to fully understand it all, so I just copied the response from the author of the video...

View attachment 3704576

Well, that is too small for me to read, so here is that text copied and pasted...

*****

Just a side discussion I want to have on galvanized steel. Galvainization is done using Zinc, and the Zinc is used as a sacrificial plating, so that it gets eaten instead of the steel. Unfortunately, it can also have some other nasties in it like lead and cadmium in the molten zinc dip process.

We had a few people bring this up, and I think it's worth having an expanded discussion on - thank you kindly for the concern!

Using old galvanized steel like this should be done with caution, but it can be done. The leeching rate of the toxins only happens when the coating is exposed to both extreme moisture and also acidic conditions, which are unlikely to be present in your raised bed. However, to be extra safe, we can take some precautions.

For us, we made sure to orient the tin coating on the outside of the bed, so that there is never any soil contact. We will also monitor our soil and test for these things (but I do not expect to find them). We also made sure that the interior of the beds were in good condition (i.e. the metal wasn't rusting through, getting access to the coating on the outside from the inside - soil). On one panel there was a little backside rust, and we made sure to orient that on the bottom of the bed, and surround it with gravel to give better drainage there. I'm honestly not too worried about it.

However, it's important that we know that's something that we should be considering in our designs. For example, as much as I am okay with using the metal in this way, I wouldn't be okay with orienting the paint on the inside of the bed, in direct soil contact. That would likely still be okay, as long as the soil pH isn't overly acidic, but it's still just another barrier I'd like to have, so we might as well be extra safe. If I had no choice but to do that, then I would line the bed with greenhouse poly (making sure there is drainage at the bottom of course), however I wouldn't really want to rely on that never getting damaged, so I would probably just avoid it.

If someone feels that's even not a risk they'd like to take, then I would recommend avoiding using any galvanized coated metal at all, but as I said, almost all resources that I found which were well cited and referenced with research/science, it was stated that it was something to be aware of, but not to be overly concerned with. Just don't add aluminum sulphate to make the soil acidic and then grow blueberries in that bed.

*****

Would love to hear any thoughts on this issue as it pertains to raised beds. Personally, I am not too worried about leeching. But I know some gardeners might have concerns that they want to express.

Our soil is very acid here, so I probably would avoid using metal for that reason alone.