
Hugelkultur: the ultimate raised garden beds - Mz
http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/
======
the_mitsuhiko
Muhaha. Sepp Holzer on hackernews. That's something. He's quite a character.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepp_Holzer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepp_Holzer)

~~~
Ntrails
Could you explain the context behind "if you don't prune your trees you'll go
to prison"?

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e15ctr0n
Hugelkultur sounds like in-situ composting to me, but with a tremendous amount
of physical effort and machinery. Not easy for the average home owner to do.

> Besides, isn't this much better use of the wood than hauling it to the dump,
> or chipping it,

Chipping wood to make it into mulch and then spreading it over your garden
beds also helps to retain moisture in the soil.

> or putting it in those big city bins for yard waste?

Cities recycle yard waste into mulch or compost that residents can use in
their garden beds for much the same purpose: nourish the soil with organic
matter and help it retain moisture.

~~~
mturmon
I have had excellent results on a 10,000 sq.ft. lot in California with an in
situ compost process like you describe. Just put down 6 inches of chipped
trees from a tree trimmer, or the city compost yard, and let it decompose.
Keep layering it on, year after year (less needed after the first time).

You have to go thicker than you probably will imagine. The initial load of
chips filled my driveway to a height over my head. And be careful to keep the
compost away from the trunks of existing trees, or it will tend to rot the
trunk, which will kill the tree.

It costs practically nothing. You should be able to get the chips for free.

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AceJohnny2
In a similar theme, Terra Preta [1] is a type of rich soil found in the Amazon
basin (otherwise notorious for its poor soil, washed out by the constant
rains) similar to Chernozem [2], and is speculated to be the result of human
action.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta)
[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernozem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernozem)

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PLenz
At least in North America you should not source your logs from as close as
possible and no more then 50 miles away (possibly much closer based on your
area) to prevent spread of any of these 53 pests or wood diseases spread by
moving logs: Ambrosia beetle

    
    
        Asian Gypsy Moth
        Asian Longhorned Beetle
        Balsam Woolly Adelgid
        Banded Elm Bark Beetle
        Bromeliad Weevil
        Brown Spruce Longhorned Beetle
        Cactus Moth
        Chestnut Gall Wasp
        Citrus Longhorned Beetle
        Common Pine Shoot Beetle
        Cycad Aulacaspis Scale
        Emerald Ash Borer
        Erythrina Gall Wasp
        Eurasian Nun Moth
        European Gypsy Moth
        European Oak Bark Beetle
        European Spruce Beetle
        Golden Haired Pine Bark Beetle
        Goldspotted oak borer
        Harrisia cactus mealybug
        Hemlock Woolly Adelgid
        Larch Casebearer
        Larger Pine Shoot Beetle
        Lobate Lac Scale
        Mediterranean Pine Engraver Beetle
        Pine Flat Bug
        Polyphagous shot hole borer
        Red-Haired Pine Bark Beetle
        Sirex Woodwasp
        Soapberry Borer
        Spruce Aphid
        Viburnum leaf beetle
        Walnut Twig Beetle
        Ohi'a Rust
        Alder Dieback
        Amylostereum complex
        Beech Bark Disease
        Butternut Canker
        Chestnut Blight
        Dogwood Anthracnose Disease
        Dutch Elm Disease
        European Larch Canker
        Fusarium fungus
        Laurel Wilt
        Oak Dieback
        Phytophthora kernoviae
        Phytophthora Root Rot
        Pine Pitch Canker
        Port-Orford-Cedar Root Disease
        Sudden Oak Death Syndrome
        Thousand Canker Disease
        White Pine Blister Rust
    

More info here: [http://www.dontmovefirewood.org/the-problem/what-you-can-
do....](http://www.dontmovefirewood.org/the-problem/what-you-can-do.html)

~~~
vacri
"Should not source" or "should source" \- typo?

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roeme
We now have 2014 and widespread Unicode. _Please, please, please_ change the
title to _Hügelkultur_ , as it should be.

It's hurting the eyes of anyone used to or fluent in german. Yuk.

On topic: Very interesting, but needs land. Urban people should use the
_Hochbeet_ instead.

~~~
virtualritz
But where do you start? :)

Even most news outlets can’t even get their micro-typography right in the age
of Unicode.

It is ‟Foo”, not "Foo". In languages where quotes are on the baseline, e.g.
German, this is even more of an eyesaw. "Spiegel" instead of „Spiegel“ (to
make matters worse, the German closing quote is wrong in Verdana, somehow).
And let’s not start about - vs. – vs. — or the difference between ... and …
(and that you have to put a space before an ellipsis). :)

~~~
wink
You start where, to a native speaker, you might not even get what the word
means - because u and ü are not nitpicking, but different letters.

Let's take the example of "fordern" vs "fördern" \- nothing in common, the
former means "to demand" and the latter means "to promote/boost/foster".

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CanSpice
Watch out for this if you try it in a city, because you could run afoul of
bylaws and angry neighbours. In Surrey, British Columbia, a family tried doing
this. They had piled up bark mulch and manure, and one of their neighbours
complained to the city, which then told the family to remove the piles under
Surrey's Unsightly Premises Bylaw. I don't know the outcome (I haven't found
any articles after this point) but if you start piling bark mulch in your back
yard, make sure you don't piss off your neighbours doing it.

[http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2013/10/03/surrey-takes-
action...](http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2013/10/03/surrey-takes-action-
against-permaculture-vegetable-garden/)

~~~
pm24601
I would also add that there are height restrictions on "fences" as well. At
six feet, there is a setback consideration in the front in my city at least.

That said at the bottom of the article:

 _My HOA won 't allow anything like that, what do I do? (my neighbors would
freak out, what do I do?)_

 _There are many possibilities. Some people dig a trench five feet deep, fill
that with organic matter and have something that is either flush with the
surface or it appears to be only one foot tall (which is in the comfort zone
of neighbors and HOA folk). Other people will build something that is 18
inches high the first year, and add a foot each year. Still others will have
so many neighbors build them all at once that it is difficult the buck the
tide. And then there is always the back yard._

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Mz
I am not a gardener, but I thought this was nifty:

 _It 's a german word and some people can say it all german-ish. I'm an
american doofus, so I say "hoogle culture". I had to spend some time with
google to find the right spelling. Hugal, hoogal, huegal, hugel .... And I
really like saying it out loud: "hugelkultur, hoogle culture, hoogal kulture
...." \- it could be a chant or something.

I learned this high-falootin word at my permaculture training. I also saw it
demonstrated on the Sepp Holzer terraces and raised beds video - he didn't
call it hugelkultur, but he was doing it.

Hugelkultur is nothing more than making raised garden beds filled with rotten
wood._

~~~
phaer
'Hügel' is just the german word for 'hill'. There's no such word as 'Hugel' in
german, the dots over the 'u' make it an Umlaut and all the difference in
pronunciation between 'hügel' and 'hoogle'. The pronunciation of 'hoogle' in
english and 'hugel' in german is the same.

~~~
alceta
There's a difference in all variations he wrote to have stumbled upon. For
demonstration, the Google Translate tool pronounces it correctly using the
Listen button on the left [1]. The correct one, 'Hügel', is different from
both 'Hugel' and 'Hoogle', which can be pronounced as in English (cf., Google)
and German (e.g., comparable to Woog [2]).

Even if the 'right spelling' is still wrong from the german word origin,
hoogle is probably easier to pronounce in english than using 'huegel' and most
certainly easier to type without the umlaut anyway. Still, that remark ('[...]
spent some time with google to find the right spelling') made me smile, as
none of these variants are really correct.

[1]
[https://translate.google.de/#de/en/Hugel%20ist%20kein%20Hueg...](https://translate.google.de/#de/en/Hugel%20ist%20kein%20Huegel%20ist%20kein%20Hoogel)
[2]
[https://translate.google.de/#de/en/Woog](https://translate.google.de/#de/en/Woog)

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virtualritz
From the source: "I had to spend some time with google to find the right
spelling."

Apparently time not well spent.

'Hugelkultur' is not a German word. 'Hügelkultur' is. Or you can write it out
as 'Huegelkultur'. ü->ue.

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Alex3917
"The best woods are even better when they have been cut the same day (this
allows you to "seed" the wood with your choice of fungus - shitake mushrooms
perhaps?)."

This is wrong, you need to wait a month before inoculating a fresh log. Less
time than that and it will still have too many antifungal chemicals present.
But more than a few months and it'll be colonized by something else.

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chm
I love gardening. This is definitely on my list of must-try. I'm having a hard
time with my pepper and tomato sprouts this year, not enough sun!

I would like to see the root system of such a hill, see how the plants and
microorganisms work with/against each other. I'm pretty sure the nutrient
dynamics are extremely complicated - and fascinating!

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jqm
The author mentions nitrogen loss from rotting wood. Does he supplement
nitrogen until the wood is well broken down?

~~~
DanBC
You plant legumes and clover and leave fallow while your other beds are
raising a few cattle or growing corn.

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zwieback
Teletubbies!

Could be fun for perennials but I'd hate to maintain a summer vegetable garden
like this.

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HeyLaughingBoy
Awesome, I am definitely trying this. I just started preparing a new garden
area for this growing season. I also have literally tons of dead trees and
plenty of space. This is going to be fun!!!

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dylanz
My kids recently created a few hugelkultur gardens at home. It's a great
project because you get to see both the growth and decomposition occur
simultaneously.

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flavor8
If you like this sort of stuff, check out the two volume tome: Edible Forest
Gardens. Fantastic overview of permaculture techniques.

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ptrklly
Does anyone know about the methane emissions associated with this? It sounds
like a cool / compelling way for individuals to sequester carbon but methane
emissions from decomposition of the wood if they're anaerobic may dwarf the
carbon gains (because methane is ~28x worse of a greenhouse gas than CO2).

~~~
jordan0day
I'm not at all knowledgeable in this subject, but wouldn't those methane
emissions occur, regardless of if this method is used?

~~~
ptrklly
It has to do with whether the wood is decomposing in the presence of oxygen or
not--the bacteria that cause decomposition in anaerobic environments emit more
methane than the bacteria that cause decomposition in aerobic environments.

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fludlight
This is how you get termites.

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mapleoin
{citation needed}

~~~
toomuchtodo
[https://www.google.com/search?q=hugelkultur+termites](https://www.google.com/search?q=hugelkultur+termites)

