The highly popular gardening author, radio personality, and blogger at AWayToGarden.com interviewed Dave recently about hugelkultur, the raised bed technique that involves using whole logs of wood in your beds.
We have a lot of trees, mostly pines, that no one wants to cut up and haul away. Now we know what to do with them; some hard work of course but then we will have a way to solve our other problem. Our property slopes toward our pond which means a lot of topsoil gets washed into it. With Hugelkultur we should be able to keep that from happening and also get some fairly level planting spots.
Thank you for posting this article!
Life is a rush into the unknown. You can duck down and hope nothing hits you, or you can stand tall, show it your teeth and say "Dish it up, Baby, and don't skimp on the jalapeños."
Sounds like you're on the right track, Terri! Pine works great for hugelkultur but I think it's better when it's a little aged. The sap in new wood tends to be bad for gardening. Once it gets a little old and the sap is all worn away then it makes excellent hugelkultur material.
Thanks Dave! I was thinking I should add lime to the mix too as our local clay soil tends to be on the high acid side, do you think that would be helpful or a waste of time and money?
Life is a rush into the unknown. You can duck down and hope nothing hits you, or you can stand tall, show it your teeth and say "Dish it up, Baby, and don't skimp on the jalapeños."
If you have lime, it's a great addition to acidic soil for sure. I use lime in particularly difficult areas. Wood ashes, used sparingly, work great too.
