Here are some pics of my pallet hügelkultur raised garden bed build. First of all, here is the raised bed frame...
This is the design where the sidewall pallet planks are put in behind the 2X4 frames. That allowed me to use any pallet boards from 10-16 inches long. Essentially, I was able to get double boards out of my 22"-24" plank stock with this design.
The cross boards on top are only temporary to keep things square while I moved the raised bed to the backyard and while I will be filling it up with wood, organics, and topsoil.
I said I was using the hügelkultur method of filling the raised bed. Here is a picture of my initial logs to line the bottom....
The older and more rotten the logs, the better for his project. These logs are a couple years old.
Here is a picture of the initial layer of logs in the bottom of the hügelkultur raised bed...
You put the biggest logs in the bottom, and then toss in smaller branches and twigs on top. My raised bed is 16 inches tall, and these initial logs take up about 8 inches on the bottom.
After you put down the logs, you start dumping in smaller organic material to fill in the gaps and holes. I had a wagon full of unfinished compost rejects from my compost sifting which was perfect for this layer....
You can see the raised bed coming together pretty nicely. In theory, the hügelkultur wood will act like a giant sponge, soaking up water when available, and releasing it to the plants later when they need it. I have had much better success with my hügelkultur raised beds because I do find that they retain more moisture than my raised beds without all that wood in the bottom. My "normal" raised beds dry out too fast and require more water to keep them healthy. The water will just drain through my "normal" raised beds whereas the hügelkultur raised beds stores a lot more water in the wood in the bottom of the bed.
With this layer of organics on top of the logs, I have about 6-8 inches left to fill in the bed. I will be sifting out some chicken run compost and mixing that 1:1 with some good topsoil I bought this spring and have not yet used. Since this is the first year of this hügelkultur bed, I can expect the soil level to drop 1-2 inches over the winter as the wood and organics in the bed start to decay and compost. That is actually a feature of this type of bed. As the wood decays, it releases more nutrients into the soil while at the same time it becomes more sponge-like, soaking up and retaining even more water for the garden bed. In the spring, before planting, I usually top off my hügelkultur raised beds with a 1-2 inch fresh layer of chicken run compost. That is some good stuff.
I had expected to finish this raised bed today with the final 6-8 inch layer of chicken run compost and topsoil, but, my wagon I use for collecting the sifted compost is full of pallet wood. If you remember, I said I had to build a mobile pallet wood storage bin for the garage in an earlier post. At any rate, I need to empty that wagon to use in sifting the compost to finish this raised bed.
I will be building another pallet raised bed of this same design, maybe in the next week or so. Dear Wife is pretty happy with this pallet raised bed build and already has a list of things she wants me to grow in the new beds next spring. Although I get little to no credit for the build, I know Dear Wife likes it because she has her list of vegetables to grow in the new beds.
I might be connecting the 2 new raised beds with an overarching trellis. Dear Wife wants to grow some bitter melons which would be excellent climbers on a trellis. I'm thinking of getting one of those livestock metal panels to use as a trellis. If anyone has other ideas for an arching trellis, let me know. Thanks.
Yours are gorgeous. Thank you for sharing the details of building...I think I could do that.
Great job. Thanks for sharing your progress pics on this build. Looks more like a pig palace than a pig hut! Has to be one of the nicest looking pig huts I have seen.
