Our "fallen wood" consists mainly of white cedar and spruce. Are those suitable for a hugel bed? (they seem to take a long time to decompose "naturallly"). And, if you have other plants growing in that bed, how do you add more branches and debris once things have broken down?

Good question. Assumes that what is planted is consumed at year end rather than perennial flowers that live there for a long time if not forever.

I love this idea. It takes a while for plants to break down but while they are they keep adding to the soil. Feed the soil and you have great plants. I bet this method of building the soil keeps for a very long time.

I'm doubting the self-watering thing. If you live in a fairly arid region, it would have to be watered when there's no rain, I bet!

I'm doubting the self-watering thing. If you live in a fairly arid region, it would have to be watered when there's no rain, I bet!

Is there any science to back up the claims about a self-watering, self-feeding system? Have you ever done a soil test on one of these beds?

Steve

In our yard they aren't self-watering. They do, however, act as moisture banks. We did our first one in 2010 or so. We hadn't collected nearly enough material (I way underestimated!), but that bed continues to be the go-to bed for plants that need more consistent moisture than my haphazard style generally affords. The soil is ever so slightly warmer (from the slow composting process I understand), and some plants that don't overwinter anywhere else in the yard pop right back up in the spring in that bed (even Datura, which typically [thankfully] doesn't have a prayer of surviving winter in Wyoming).

There are old tree roots under parts of our front lawn. Their locations are revealed as trails of green turf when it's warm, dry and windy here. Expanding on that concept, I burried test plots of the city's single-grind wood mulch under the sod (excavated rather than mounded). Now, in addition to green trails, we have green polka dots. Last September the temperatures stayed warm (something like the second-warmest September on record for us), wind as usual and nary a drop of rain the entire month. The polka dots eventually went dormant, but they were the last places to do so - plus they greened right back up when we got rains in October. Maybe this will be the year I get wood chips burried under all the worst areas of the lawn and lose the polka dots...

Weedwacker - cedar will not do. Any wood that will rot is good.

Steve_mass
I don't know the science. But, hundreds of years of use in Germany and Austria is good enough reason to try it. Google it. My hugle is just wonderful. Bumper crops and no bending over. Now in it's 3rd year. Did a soil test this year. Waiting for results.

I think this is a wondrful idea but I wish I had known about it earlier in life.
I do the Ruth Stout method and it is great for those of us in our senior years. You just can't beat it if you have access to old hay. Just throw it on the ground in fall, pull aside and plant in spring. Add a Little more around plants. No weeding, no or very little watering. Enriches the soil, keeps it moist and keeps out weeds. I never weed, fertilize or water. Just keep nice thick layer of hay.
But I will pass this idea of the trenches onto younger ones.

I started doing straw bale gardening last year. We placed the straw bales on top of our already raised beds. Now I can pick string beans without bending and my back loves that. We had very good results with squash, too. Did have to water, using soakers along the rows, but not too much because the "straws" hold water.
We need to get more straw bales for the parts we left alone. I figure I will get about 2 years out of a bale without adding another the 3rd year.
I love the idea of the hugel thing. Now though, we are too old to do all that work to get them started.

Last Spring I decided to build a vegetable garden using this method. We have lots of stone and ledge here and rototilling is anything but fun. We also happen to have two horses and years worth of shavings from old bedding. It took a long time to haul many trailer loads of bedding, put down wet newspaper, leaves and logs and build it up to about 3 feet high (it settles) by 30 by 4 rows. I was rather doubtful about all of this but did it anyways. Furthermore, it was my first year with wintersowing and I had sown a few cool weather heirloom tomatoes which remained rather small in their containers. Plus, I didn't get them into the ground until the second and third week of June. I added some Tomato-Tone (organic) to each hole as I planted them and watered them in good. Kept watering as needed and then they took off. I got ripe tomatoes later in the summer but got so many wonderful tasting tomatoes. From what started as a rather doubtful beginning (experiment) ended up a huge success. So, last fall, I added more leaves and composted manure/bedding so that I could plant earlier this year.

By all means, try this. It certainly does make sense when you think about it. What is soil but sand with various minerals, crushed rocks and thousands of years of rotted vegetation.

I made a post nearly five years ago now and will add that my garden was incredibly productive. My tomatoes plants were very big and we stopped staking them at 5 feet and did more of an espalier with them. Fruit production was incredible and continued until we had a hard frost in October.

This past summer, I added mulch mostly in the Spring and the garden was less than admirable. I added composted woodshavings and should have added more nitrogen to the mix. This year, I have hauled lots of compost up to the garden so that it has a winter to help break it down.

My conclusion is that the nitrogen robbing done by the wood shavings that weren't thoroughly composted was the culprit. So, my fall chores now include putting lots of composting materials, fall leaves, horse bedding, and leave it to rot over the winter. Next Spring, I should have better garden materials to plant in.