Hügelkultur Raised Beds

[McChooky]

Lots of respect to those guys risking their lives everyday felling trees. Although I have lots of DIY experience taking down trees, cutting the wood up, and maybe splitting it into firewood, it's not like I am out there risking life and limb every day. Most of my office jobs had a risk of a papercut...



I have watched a lot of Paul Gautschi YouTube videos on his Back to Eden method of composting wood chips and making soil. I imagine that sawdust made some great soil when mixed with other organics and left to compost. What many people miss in Paul's method is that the wood chips he uses are actually composted with animal manures before he puts the "wood chips" out in his garden. Plants don't grow well in plain wood chips. I think many of us would his "wood chip" use as compost based on wood chips.

I think sawdust would make great filler for the voids left between the larger logs in the bottom of a hügelkultur raised bed. You could really pack that stuff in those voids and make the bed even better with less soil level loss in the raised bed in those first years.

I am assuming that your sawdust garden had been sitting for a number of years and composting in place. I don't think plants would grow well in fresh sawdust.

They worked the sawmill 20 years.It was closed after my grandfather was injured and died in the 50's (73 years ago) The sawdust piles were still steaming in the 60's when we were kids growing up .They're long gone now.I raised a garden there in the 80's

 

[McChooky]

I made a keyhole garden in 2011 using 16'" logs around the perimeter instead of bricks (I can't seem to find a picture of it) The screen in the center is a compost pile for scraps from the kitchen or garden.I never had to water it.This is just a photo of one similar to it

 

[gtaus]

I made a keyhole garden in 2011 using 16'" logs around the perimeter instead of bricks (I can't seem to find a picture of it) The screen in the center is a compost pile for scraps from the kitchen or garden.I never had to water it.This is just a photo of one similar to it

I imagine that compost pile in the center provided lots of fresh food for worms, which would spread out all that nutrition throughout the bed.

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.

Of course, now I have a backyard flock of laying hens, so they get all the kitchen scraps. That's even a better way to make fast compost as the chickens digest and poo out those kitchen scraps, which gets mixed in with all my other chicken run and coop litter. I don't think you could get a faster turnaround on making compost.

I like the looks of brick, but recently I did a little cost analysis of how much it would cost to make a raised bed using bricks. It was really expensive. Well, especially compared to free pallet wood that I use.

If you had a few trees fall down from a storm, I bet those tree trunks might make a nice, raised bed. They would have to be pretty small trees for me to move, however. But it might look really nice.

 

[McChooky]

I imagine that compost pile in the center provided lots of fresh food for worms, which would spread out all that nutrition throughout the bed.

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.

Of course, now I have a backyard flock of laying hens, so they get all the kitchen scraps. That's even a better way to make fast compost as the chickens digest and poo out those kitchen scraps, which gets mixed in with all my other chicken run and coop litter. I don't think you could get a faster turnaround on making compost.

I like the looks of brick, but recently I did a little cost analysis of how much it would cost to make a raised bed using bricks. It was really expensive. Well, especially compared to free pallet wood that I use.

If you had a few trees fall down from a storm, I but those tree trunks might make a nice, raised bed. They would have to be pretty small trees for me to move, however. But it might look really nice.

If you don't mind the rustic look you could make some of these
(not necessarily this tall)You could line the inside with landscape fabric,feed sacks, old tin,wood, etc

 

[McChooky]

If you look behind the picket fence along the ground you can see the bottom of my keyhole flower bed that had firewood logs buried around the perimeter to hold the soil in.The center was almost 3 ft tall.

 

[McChooky]

I like using cinder blocks and pallets lol(not mine but it is one of my summer projects)

 

[McChooky]

I made a rocket stove outdoor Pizza oven about 8 years ago when I retired but a guy working on our sewer drain lines hit the side of it with a piece of heavy equipment and destroyed it.I was too pissed off to build another one(double chambers)

 

[McChooky]

I imagine that compost pile in the center provided lots of fresh food for worms, which would spread out all that nutrition throughout the bed.

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.

Of course, now I have a backyard flock of laying hens, so they get all the kitchen scraps. That's even a better way to make fast compost as the chickens digest and poo out those kitchen scraps, which gets mixed in with all my other chicken run and coop litter. I don't think you could get a faster turnaround on making compost.

I like the looks of brick, but recently I did a little cost analysis of how much it would cost to make a raised bed using bricks. It was really expensive. Well, especially compared to free pallet wood that I use.

If you had a few trees fall down from a storm, I but those tree trunks might make a nice, raised bed. They would have to be pretty small trees for me to move, however. But it might look really nice.

I raised red wigglers back then,now I raise night crawlers lol

 

[Molpet]

guy working on our sewer drain lines hit the side of it with a piece of heavy equipment and destroyed it.

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

 

[McChooky]

I imagine that compost pile in the center provided lots of fresh food for worms, which would spread out all that nutrition throughout the bed.

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.

Of course, now I have a backyard flock of laying hens, so they get all the kitchen scraps. That's even a better way to make fast compost as the chickens digest and poo out those kitchen scraps, which gets mixed in with all my other chicken run and coop litter. I don't think you could get a faster turnaround on making compost.

I like the looks of brick, but recently I did a little cost analysis of how much it would cost to make a raised bed using bricks. It was really expensive. Well, especially compared to free pallet wood that I use.

If you had a few trees fall down from a storm, I but those tree trunks might make a nice, raised bed. They would have to be pretty small trees for me to move, however. But it might look really nice.

The storms damaged our county but I wasn't affected fortunately. Just washed out my driveway but my brother has an escalator so he fixed it last week.I couldn't get out for a couple weeks but I was able to borrow his vehicle. It Flooded a lot of homes and businesses here. Washed culverts and bridges out.Town was under water. I'm on a hill 25 ft above the flood waters . Fema and the National Guard are here cleaning up and giving assistance and SBA is giving loans