Looking for a productive way to grow food that requires less work?
Utilized in Germany and Eastern Europe for hundreds of years, hugelkultur (literally meaning “mound culture”) is a method of growing food that can be built using locally available materials. Because this growing technique applies principles that are found in nature, you get nature’s help to produce food efficiently without many of the challenges that come with a conventional tillage garden.
Hugelkultur is an innovative gardening and farming technique that builds the fertility of the soil, retains soil moisture (making it a good option in drought-prone regions), allows for good soil drainage, reduces the need to weed, and provides a great way to use extra woody materials that are lying around on your property.
Hugelkultur works by burying woody materials, such as logs, branches and twigs, under soil, and then growing plants on top of the buried mound. The wood in hugelkultur beds soaks up water like a sponge, providing moisture to the plants, and the decomposing wood continually feeds the soil in the bed.
Hugelkultur mimics the natural conditions found within a forest, where plants grow on top of decaying trees. Basically, hugelkultur is the composting of organic materials in the same space where you are growing plants.
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Practical Applications for Hugelkultur
Hugelkultur is an especially useful growing technique where soil conditions are poor, such as compacted soils, poor soil drainage, and soil with poor water retention such as those soils that are often present in urban areas.
The hugelkultur method can be applied to a number of different forms, including within traditional raised bed structures, above the ground in tall mounds, or below the ground in buried ditches. One of the advantages of the above-ground hugelkultur mounds is that you can grow on different aspects, such as on the sides, on the top, and on the ends of the mound.
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Choosing Wood for Your Hugelkultur Bed
When it comes to building a hugelkultur bed, the choice of wood is very important. Wood from trees like cedar, black cherry, black locust and black walnuts either do not decompose easily, or they contain plant chemicals that would inhibit plant growth. Wood choices that work well in hugelkultur beds include alder, maple, apple, cottonwood, poplars, willow and birch.
Rotting wood is the best choice to help get your hugelkultur bed going faster. However, if you have freshly cut wood, you may need to add sources of nitrogen to your bed, such as composted manure and kitchen scraps. Adding these sources of nitrogen compensates for the fact that freshly cut wood is high in carbon and would lead to “nitrogen stealing” from within the bed, thereby reducing the amount of nitrogen that is available to your growing plants.
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Article source: Off The Grid News
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