Hi Gloria.......
Yes, I have heard about hugelkultur. In a sense that is what I am doing. No, there is no wood or brush on my property to do that kind of thing. But, the truth is, I had not heard of it when I started this garden.
In my first post to this thread, I described my "stuff". It is highly compacted rocks and stones with clay between them. There is so much rock in the stuff that I can walk on it when it is wet. It drains beautifully. Since the house pad and garden area was cut out of a slope created by glacier debris and is about four feet down from what would be the surface of that rocky slope, you could also legitimately say my "stuff" is subsoil. It is so far down from what would have been the surface of the slope, there was no plant organic material in it, so for plant growth, it is dead. That is why I don't need weed barrier for the uncultivated parts that I now call paths
My first novice mistake was to dig rose holes in the stuff and to mix compost with the native soil to plant my roses. Of course, the compost decomposed and my roses sunk ! Ooops !
I created beds by hauling river rocks from the dredging piles and then mulched not only the roses, but the beds I created around them. I made a point of overhead watering the beds to help with decomposing the material I had used as mulch. Over time, the continuous addition of plant organic materials, watering them during the periods of high temps, and their decomposing has created live soil a few inches down and if you go down further, the rocks are no longer as tightly compacted.
Since I can't buy soil up here, I do have to make my own. I now have plenty of sources for leaves, forest duff, wood chips, rotten hay and more. I just have to go get it, haul it home and haul it up from the street level to the house pad/gardening level and then put it in the beds.
A friend up the road a piece is going to build a compost bin for me on his property and since he has all of the materials on site at his property, will be filling it for me. That will make my life a bit easier.
Smiles,
Lyn
