Hugelkultur: the ultimate raised garden beds | Hacker News Reader

Hugelkultur: the ultimate raised garden beds

richsoil.com

134 pointsMz36 comments

Muhaha. Sepp Holzer on hackernews. That's something. He's quite a character.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepp_Holzer

Of course, "Holz" in German means "wood". Another case of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism? :)

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

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.

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.

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 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernozem

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....

"Should not source" or "should source" - typo?

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.

Or at least 'Huegelkultur', especially since the author spends some time talking about the correct spelling.

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). :)

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".

I copied and pasted the title when I submitted it. The mods modified it to have the first letter capitalized even though it is not in the article. My mom is German and I know a smidgeon, though I would not say I am fluent. I quoted the part of the article where the author says they can't pronounce it.

So in this case, I think it does not work to add the umlaut. It may be more correct German but it does not accurately represent the article. As a half German American, I appreciate some of the comments on the language piece in this discussion but I can't agree with your request here.

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...

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.

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.

'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.

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... [2] https://translate.google.de/#de/en/Woog

I always think of the sound one makes when we say eeeeewww, as in 'that's disgusting', when remembering how to pronounce my ü's. I find that is a much closer sound compared to 'oo'.

Note that some dialects have their problems with the u-umlau, in which case you'll actually hear "Hugl". As the article is referencing someone from such an ü-challenged area (Mr. Holzer), maybe the writer just heard it that way.

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.

"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.

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!

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

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

Teletubbies!

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

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!!!

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.

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

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).

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

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.

This is how you get termites.

{citation needed}

https://www.google.com/search?q=hugelkultur+termites

Make sure you bury it with enough soil. You will get termites (in sub/tropical Australia at least) if you leave the wood exposed or too lightly buried. There is also the matter of snakes - they like to live in wood piles.

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