Hugelkultur, mounds of fun!

  Finally we have begun the hugelkultur bed!  For months I have been giving the ginormis pile of logs and brush in the middle of the field the hairy eyeball.  I hated the idea of putting it there, but as it turns out it was a great thing.  Hugelkultur or mound gardening  uses up all the brush, logs, roots/stumps to build a mounded garden that will conserve water, and sequester carbon while providing nutrients for plants growing on it. Here is the pile of logs and brush as Dain is shaping the hugelkultur bed. 

As you can see it is a huge pile, Dain sculpted an awesome crescent that faces south and will create a nice micro climate in winter. (fingers crossed)  While Dain was sculpting, I was gathering logs we had piled around the property to fill in holes and try to make a smoother plane to place the dirt onto.

This is what we had once Dain and I were finished, and now we are ready for dirt!  This thing ended up tremendously large and will take a ton and a half of dirt to give us the foot or so of depth we need on top of this thing.  We are planning a largish pond on the other side of the field where water normally collects and so we are taking soil from that area to use on the bed.

It is hard to see the scale in these pictures, but the top of the bed is about shoulder height, or 5 feet high without the soil.  As large as this bed is I should be able to produce plenty of food for the family, a great start!