Hello!
How was your Monday? I guess some of you are just getting into it!!
Today I made a really good start on a Hugelkultur garden bed! Its a bit of an awkward mouthful so I have named it the Huggle Monster.
It can be friends with Tentacular, the passionfruit vine! 😀
Anyway – above is the bin over filled with coffee and a heap of cardboard from one of the local supermarkets.
I did start the fire today but it was too much of a hassle to keep it going well in between my other project. I fired it up better at the end of the day, just because I rather enjoy a decent fire!
Luckily Jeff got partly in here last time he mowed – it was a bit of a jungle.
I selected this spot and put the cardboard down. It was windy so I had a couple of loads of wood to put straight on it so I wasn’t chasing the cardboard all over the neighbours paddock.
Basic outlining… then came the colouring in.
I used a lot of the older stumps and a few of the newer ones as a solid base.
The idea here if you are not familiar with this (and this is VERY general as I only did a crash course via youtube last night) is that the wood slowly breaks down – it provides an area for bugs, skinks, fungi etc to live and grow. You fill the areas up with all kinds of composting materials over the top – you can add soil etc. It will settle – you just top it up.
The wood will soak up moisture and if done well these beds don’t need much in the way of watering if you are planting deeper rooting plants.
Next came a few loads of the smaller logs/branches
I decided to start putting in some small tree litter on – once I rattled it about a bit a lot started falling in the gaps
Yeah I know – totally not going to win any beauty contest as yet!
Hopefully come spring my ugly duckling will be more swan-like.
Another load of the smaller branches
And a load of leaf litter from the ignored front/side of the house. (I hadn’t been around there in a while and that was a shock!)
Next – time to pep up the Huggle Monster with some coffee.
I must say, I totally love this style of building a bed! Its like Freestyle Gardening, if there is such a thing!
Because Macrocarpa are a pine I am figuring the bed is going to be a bit acidic, so I very scientifically dumped a container of wood ash on top as I cleaned out our indoor fire yesterday. Then topped that with a bit of leftover mushroom compost.
And because I didn’t think I had done enough work yet, I dragged out the chipper and put through one of the piles of branches. This time with the tin & tarp, making a bit of a berm to catch the errant chips. Gathering them up was a lot easier.
It spits it out far and wide – its a very enthusiastic machine!
I need to brace it better next time. It seems to like dancing all over the platform.
I got two full barrow loads out of todays efforts.
So I dressed the Huggle Monster in a layer.
Over the next little while I will add grass clippings, leaf litter – all that kind of thing. Might even jump the fence with a barrow and shovel and get some cow poo too. Once I have done that I’ll cover in straw so it can work on its decomposition.
Great way to clean up the yard too! 😀
I enjoyed the process rather a lot (suits my aesthetically relaxed nature I think) I’d like to build a few more in this area – just have to maybe give myself a day or two before jumping in there again!!
Finished up the evening with a rather lovely full rainbow! Didn’t have my wide angle lens on but it was a beauty!
Cheers!!
Lisa, consider yourself very lucky to have a coffee shop willing to save its grounds. I approached our local shop and was told that not only was I in line for the grounds, none of us were going to get any as it was too much work to separate the grounds from the rest of the trash!
Until I moved to present house where there is zero composting done, I did save my own coffee grounds for the garden.
What a waste!
Elizabeth
Hi Elizabeth… thats so disappointing isn’t it? No effort to do something that will benefit the environment! Our coffee shops seem to have a ‘waste tube’ that the tap each coffee grinds lot into, then that tube is disposed of at the end of the day to… wherever. So no difference to dump it in my bin or theirs. Which is great! Will go back at the end of the week to swap the bins out. Don’t want it that full again!! Waaay to heavy for me! 🙂
Great job! I”m anxious to see what happens as time goes by. I don’t have enough space to do that but am enjoying living through you.
Thank-you!! I too am rather keen to see how it goes come spring!! Its such a great concept! Glad you enjoyed!
Oh my what an accomplishment!! Now that is some kind of MONSTER!! Clean up too!! I know you’ve got to be aching!!!can’t wait to what grows in that garden. You are so ambitious!! I get worn out just reading your workload. Love from Georgia. NowREST !!😘😘😁😁
lol – I slowed it up a bit today! Glad you enjoyed but don’t get too tired over my antics haha Pretty happy with the progress but really looking forward to using it in spring. xx
Wow Lisa, this is such fantastic use of what nature (and the tree loppers) has given you. When life gives you lemons … or in this case, so much timber you didn’t know what to do with it. I’ll be watching with great interest. Thanks for documenting it all. x
Thanks Judy – glad you found it interesting!! Saves us a bit of chopping here and there!! I am so looking forward to spring and seeing how it goes!
I’ve heard of hugelkutures before and always wanted to see one done! Thank you for sharing Lisa, I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out. How long will it be before you can plant in it?
Hi Amy! I am really looking forward to working though the process of this. Its so interesting and I am keen to see how it goes in spring! Hopefully also I can build another couple in the duckyard in the near future. Because I am waiting for my materials to compost down rather than buying in some soil etc to put on the top, I think by spring it should be ready for planting… (September) Once I have finished building it up I’ll cover it in straw to insulate it a bit and help it keep warm and compost it quicker. Someone also suggested covering with a tarp during this period… A really fun experiment!