#hugelculture

[bcb-and-b-368-lindsay-road-40]

Core beliefs and Sunday farming update.

[300jive]

Raised Beds - Design and Build - Hugelculture Style and VERY low cost ($5 per bed!!!)

http://www.edibleacres.org These beds happen to be 4’x8′ but of course could be any dimension people wanted. We make them 4′ wide because our 1/2" EMT conduit pipes bent in an arch will fit over them to turn them into mini low-tunnels if needed. The wood is sourced from a local saw mill. Wherever you live you may find a saw mill that has offcuts, slabcuts, slabwood, live edge, wastewood.. ..Many…

[thedirtmag]

My hugel is coming along well. Last night I seeded what I’ve done so far with clover seeds. It needs something growing to keep the dirt from running off with the rain. #hugel #hugelculture #permaculture #growingfoodathome #thedirtonorganicgardening (at Pasadena, California)

[akwardkisses]

The raised beds are coming along. I'm using several different gardening methods this year. First these are standing beds so they are counter height. No bending or crawling around on achy knees. The bottoms are full of branches and brush and small logs that will break down slowly and help keep the beds warm and fed as in hugelculture. The sides are open so the roots will be air pruned naturally. And the beds will be too dressed with a thick layerof well composted wood chips to prevent weeds and keep the soil moist as in back to Eden gardens. After they are full they will be no till, just topped off each year as needed. We'll see how well this works. Wish me luck. # # # #poverty_hill #homestead #gardening #raisedbeds #hugelculture #airpruning #standingraisedbeds #backtoeden #ruralpa #myhappyplace (at Pennsylvania) https://www.instagram.com/p/BwzxQNsha_Y/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1440yrqepc4ud

[redshiftsinger]

A thing I learned today:

Apparently, it is all-around harder to keep one's core temperature regulated without external intervention when one is short of calories, regardless of whether the regulation is to stay warm or to avoid overheating.

Been gardening a lot all weekend, working on digging out a new bed which will become, if all goes to plan, a very nice (small) hugelculture berm to fix some drainage issues in the yard, planted with tarragon, echinacea, and hyssop. But right now it's an ugly hole by the window well, next to a wheelbarrow of displaced dirt. Anyway.

The last few days of work, I've gotten hot, but been able to stay out for most of the day with reasonable hydration breaks.

Today I hit hyperfocus and forgot to eat lunch, even though I was still taking regular hydration breaks.

Started getting early heat exhaustion symptoms so I went inside, cooled off appropriately, rested, hydrated, had a gatorade to make sure my electrolytes were being maintained. Felt better after a bit, so went back outside. Not half an hour later, started having heat exhaustion symptoms again. Thought well maybe I hadn't cooled down as well as I thought I had, so went back in and stayed in longer and really made sure I was solidly temperature-stabilized. Went back out. And shortly had to come back in again. At this point I realized something was UP, started running my "I feel like crap, why" checklist, and realized I had forgotten to eat lunch and it was now about 5pm.

So anyway, I have now Had An Food, and have also decided that in the interests of making sure I don't pull a stupid and overtax myself to the point of having more serious problems, that I'm done with hole-digging for the day.

[salbidum]

Garden log! Done today:

- Above the driveway

Watered in the swales

Planted jacob’s ladder and ranunculus in growbags, surrounded the ranunculus with hardware cloth as it’s just deer lettuce. I’m a little worried because I used pine fines and compost instead of potting soil, and the existing rootball on the jacob’s ladder was almost as deep as the growbag

Transferred some star of bethlelem from the daffodil bed below the driveway to the box planters under the swales. It may die, which is fine, because it tends to take over.

- Below the driveway/on the erosion slope

With spouse’s help, used rebar pins to put 2 4x4′s into the erosion slope to try to slow down the stormwater

Wasted water egregiously to test the effects of the erosion timbers; went and got some dry rotten wood from an older bed-edging and wedged it in under the timbers on the uphill side. Punky wood is amazing at holding water, the hugelculture people are right.

Planted some parsley in one of the straw bales; the root ball was worryingly small, but parsley is basically either cursed or cussed and no in between in my experience (I’ve still got a four-year-old parsley plant growing out of the side of a ball of tree roots that comes back every year no matter what)

- In the sideyard 

Rebar pinned a landscaping timber to complete the sideyard path (the timber at the lower end still needs to be pinned in, but there’s now consistent edging down the entire sideyard.) Emptied some bags of rocks out there in celebration. I now have the continuous white rock path I always wanted! Pending some other work. 

- In the back bog

Planted golden star in the back bog (a common walkway/floodplain/sewer easement, and a place of great despair). It will probably die immediately as the soil is unbelievably gross (just sopping clay over sand) but it was also $5 and I will survive the disappointment. It would be amazing if something with some root mass could be convinced to live back there. 

[coyote-mints]

Y'all think asparagus would do well in a hugelculture?

[richsgoodfood]

Finally building my newest raised bed.. saving the beautiful black earth for on top of the bed .. the hole will be back filled with wood chips . #richsgarden17 #richsgarden #raisedbeds #hugelculture #gardening2017 #gardening #cantwastegooddirt #blackearth (at Rich Fletcher's Good Food & Photography)

[npracsstuff]

#hugelculture

[thebandinicorner]

Hugelculture: In A Pot! (nursery trick)

[bcb-and-b-368-lindsay-road-40]

Yo-Yo Rubarth’s 17th Meddle, September 20/24.

[debkolaras]

Besides clearing the start of our first of 10 #hugelculture raised beds, we installed our first bee colony and hit the last hour of a cool local burgeoning wine fest. This dude is the only man that understands my need to be doing. He's got my whole heart.❤️ Ev.ery.damn.day. #tndo #hugelculture #gardening #beekeeping #wine $#shoplocal #farming #montpelierwinefestival (at Honah Lee Vineyard)

[rooted-and-reaching]

If I had development space I would definitely go for this type of garden. Maybe once I move to my own space.

[fromwindfallfarm]

Grass Farming

There’s a lot going on these days on our tiny farm. Most of it is happening inside my head. Some of it gets onto paper and even less is manifested physically. 

The chickens are on grass!! That’s our old rabbit hutch turned coop with a welded wire fence around it. Many thanks to dear, kind, generous Andy who helped Brendan move it. It’s been about a week and it seems to be working out. Our hope is that they will eat the grass up and this area can become a permaculture inspired orchard garden with herbs, flowers, berries and vegetables growing underneath the trees. The plants will be chosen for their functions: attracting beneficial insects and building soil heath primarily but also for food, medicine and beauty. This is a multi-year vision. First steps are grass removal, heavy mulching with woody material, possibly some cover cropping and then we can begin to select and plant the understory. Three of our ten fruit trees now have hugelculture beds under them. Hugel means “hill” or “mound.” Do I sound like I know what I am talking about? Everything I know about this concept comes from the internet and books and it’s all new to me. I guess orchards like the soil underneath them to mimic the edge of the forest: decomposing woody stuff, not grass.

You can add all sorts of things to hugelculture beds. Ours have cardboard, rotten logs I found on the property, goat bedding and some woodstove ashes. The chickens like to perch on the logs and scratch in the goat bedding so they are not as tidy as they were on day one. About fifteen minutes after completing these beds I threw my back out HARD and was in bed for three or four days pretty much completely dysfunctional. It’s been about three weeks and I am still recovering... I read a lot and made a lot of maps and drawings:

One of our major goals for the year is to build a barn and we are excited to be working with Mary Quigley and her team at Quigley Builders. We are in the planning and design phase right now. It’s very, very overwhelming and exciting and keeps me up nights thinking. Part of the challenge is that we don’t know what the future will bring. Are we on the path to becoming a Grade A dairy? Are we going to add new animals? This week I am completely obsessed with the idea of getting pigs, for example. Are we going to get over this farmy bug someday and want none of it? It’s hard to say. Thankfully our budget will constrain us to some extent as well as the realities of the site, mainly the slope and our number one goal of making it possible to care for the animals in deep winter without having to go outside. These two factors more than anything else play a huge role in the design process. 

I titled this post “grass farming” fully intending to wax on and on about the challenges of pasture restoration but Ida is saying, “Time’s up please take me and Anniken for a walk.“ But look, goats! Grass! Farming! Also, daisies and a rainbow for good measure.

[papalagiblog]

Sepp Holzer uses the terrain, ponds, swales and hugelkulture to direct water to where it is needed on this Montana farm. www.holzeragroecology.com

[off-grid-inspiration]

Herb spiral in the summer ~ omfield.org