Author Topic: Hugelkultur (Read 3710 times)

shin · « **on:** July 29, 2015, 08:52:58 PM »

For those of you who want to garden but have terrible soil, you don't have to buy a ton of replacement soil to fix it.

As long as you have some broken down tree limbs and branches you can fix your soil with hugelkultur. I hear it works best with raised beds too, and so is no dig.

And a lot of folks are always looking for ideas to get rid of those downed trees in the yard without much trouble -- so here's a solution worth reading up on.

Nadir · « **Reply #1 on:** July 30, 2015, 03:27:37 AM »

Interesting!
http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/

shin · « **Reply #2 on:** July 30, 2015, 04:03:39 AM »

What I find particularly interesting is that it can save a lot of watering, even to the point of not having to.

Nadir · « **Reply #3 on:** July 30, 2015, 04:22:21 AM »

http://tcpermaculture.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/trees-to-use-and-avoid-in-hugelkultur.html

It happens in nature. Just take a walk in the forest.

There's so much wood on the ground in my country, it is astounding. When my husband first saw it he wanted to know why somebody didn't do something with it. Mind you it is largely eucalypt which is very hard wood and slow to rot.

shin · « **Reply #4 on:** August 05, 2015, 02:54:34 AM »

I have found a bunch of sumac in my backyard, which I have to take care of -- they grow like weeds, producing a ton of wood, I mean really these things grow -fast- and take over.. Funny, I had a forest of it in the past too, where I lived before.

I figure I'll get some use out of it t his way.

Nadir · « **Reply #5 on:** August 05, 2015, 04:11:50 AM »

I'd never heard of it.

Cash crop?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumac
http://www.taste.com.au/how+to/articles/52/sumac

PerEvangelicaDicta · « **Reply #6 on:** August 05, 2015, 08:16:36 AM »

shin, coincidentally, last week I was researching local places to forage for berries and I kept finding references to sumac. So I did a quick search and noticed it is popular as a ground spice. I wonder if that's something you can pursue, as Nadir suggested?

We're trying hard to save a birch in our yard, but if it does not recover, it's in a perfect spot to try hugelkultur, with leftover soil and other organic materials around.

shin · « **Reply #7 on:** August 06, 2015, 01:53:28 AM »

Never thought it could be worth something like that, have I had a blind eye? well now I'll have to look into that spice, seeing as it's all seeding right now.

Medieval medicine?

The stuff is like bamboo it just takes over and grows from spreading common roots in the ground. Seriously, every day you go out, it's visibly taller, you can practically sit there and watch it. You mow it down, it comes back up.

Let me read up. Ah-ha, the stuff in my yard isn't the spice version I think.. Neither is it 'poison sumac' which would be a bad mistake of the one for the other..

The stuff I have is 'staghorn sumac'. Called so because of the flowers bunched together I'd say. Very memorable looking stuff.

Let's see, 'staghorn sumac' leaves and more can be used as a natural dye and dye setter. The berries can actually be used for pink lemonade? Well, this I may dare try.

I don't think there's much use for staghorn except perhaps as a source of thin bark covered wood. The wood itself unseasoned is very flexible and weak, so I don't know if it could be used for anything sturdy after seasoning -- might be better to replace it with a grove of bamboo which would grow as quickly and have more use furnishings and crafts.

On the subject of cash crops, garlic is a possibility I hear about. Well honestly, a lot of nursery items are supposed to be good.

Fast growing wood that is actually useful for larger furnishings, there's some sort of Chinese tree I've heard about that grows very quickly with a fancy look to it, very invasive though, but you'd need room to plant a lot of them and still some years for it to grow up. Let's see it's called the Paulownia.

I'm planting a variety of things over here, but I have to see what likes the soil I have here before doing anything on a sizable scale.

My hydrangea are looking a bit ragged now so I'm concerned overall. Going to pick up some fertilizer soon see if that helps, and I need to get the soil tested.

shin · « **Reply #8 on:** August 06, 2015, 02:02:50 AM »

Looks like I was wrong, searching a bit more, you can use the staghorn sumac for spice after all!

I'll give it a try!

Iuvenalis · « **Reply #9 on:** August 06, 2015, 11:34:56 AM »

Hugelkultur sounds interesting. Seems like you need the right sorta trees, or at least not the wrong sorta trees.

Anyone ever used the Mitleider method in raised beds? Ridiculously productive in small beds. I mean *ridiculous.

http://growfood.com/Mittleider-Gardening-Course-Book

jen51 · « **Reply #10 on:** August 06, 2015, 11:52:16 AM »

Sumac is a great plant for many uses. Smooth sumac grows around here, and people generally only pay attention to it for it's vibrant fall display or deep red leaves. The berries, if picked at the right time, can as you say, Shin, be used for "pink lemonade". I don't think it tastes like pink lemonade, myself. I didn't find the taste all too pleasing, but tolerable.

Where I live, garlic grows in abundance in the wild, so we don't plant it. We pull a years supply of it every summer, and scatter the heads of it back where we found it for next years crop. The medicinal properties of wild garlic are absolutely outstanding. I've used it to treat many ailments.

I'd like to get around to trying some different methods of gardening, like Hugelkulture. Some friends of ours have a very nice hugel bed. We till the garden in the spring, and sometimes the fall. We plant, and when the plants reach a certain height, we mulch heavily. We put cardboard down, and then put a thick layer of straw, clippings, wood shavings, or what-have-you down. This way we don't have to weed all summer and moisture is retained. July and August are almost always droughthy, so the mulch helps immensely. The cardboard breaks down by the end of the summer, and we till it all under, along with some animal poo and compost. Makes for fertile, rejuvenized beds every year.

Right now is prime time for garden harvesting. Not a day has gone by in the past few weeks that I haven't been preserving something. We've got tomatoes out our ears at the moment, and I've been making all sorts of yummy sauces, soups, and snacks out of them.

Once my company leaves this weekend, I'm going to start some fall lettuce and spinach. I don't save any of the lettuce, but I do freeze the leftover spinach for various recipes and smoothies.

PerEvangelicaDicta · « **Reply #11 on:** August 06, 2015, 01:14:56 PM »

Iuvenalis / Jen51, thank you very much. I'm passing on your info to the gardener in the family. We've had a so so year and need to reassess techniques.

Shin it's nice that your sumac has flowers and berries.
Except for that aspect, your description of it sounds similar to the invasive bamboo-type growth in our neighbor's yard. If we don't pull out the new shoots almost daily, it takes over quickly. Several inches per day.

confederate catholic · « **Reply #12 on:** August 06, 2015, 01:41:15 PM »

Quote

Spice and beverage flavoring
The fruits (drupes) of the genus Rhus are ground into a reddish-purple powder used as a spice in Middle Eastern cuisine to add a lemony taste to salads or meat.[5] In Arab cuisine, it is used as a garnish on meze dishes such as hummus and tashi is added to salads in the Levant. In Iranian (Persian and Kurdish) cuisines, sumac is added to rice or kebab. In Jordanian and Turkish cuisines, it is added to salad-servings of kebab and lahmacun. Rhus coriaria is used in the spice mixture za'atar.[8][9]

In North America, the smooth sumac (R. glabra) and the staghorn sumac (R. typhina) are sometimes used to make a beverage termed "sumac-ade", "Indian lemonade", or "rhus juice". This drink is made by soaking the drupes in cool water, rubbing them to extract the essence, straining the liquid through a cotton cloth, and sweetening it. Native Americans also use the leaves and drupes of the smooth and staghorn sumacs combined with tobacco in traditional smoking mixtures.

pretty sure that our sumacs are strained like above, have used the middle eastern for a spice not our american one

ihsv · « **Reply #13 on:** August 06, 2015, 02:11:18 PM »

FYI, we did a hugelkultur bed this year, and it's awesome. It's a bit of work setting it up, but it was well worth it. Essentially, we had a bunch of semi-rotten wood which we stacked up, covered that with a layer of earth, added some horse manure, and then topped it off with woodchips. We planted watermelons, sweet potatoes, and a number of other veggies. They all did very well.

Nadir · « **Reply #14 on:** August 06, 2015, 09:37:44 PM »

Quote from: Iuvenalis

Anyone ever used the Mitleider method in raised beds? Ridiculously productive in small beds. I mean *ridiculous.

http://growfood.com/Mittleider-Gardening-Course-Book

Is that where your garden grows vertically? Have a look at this:
http://www.ini-world-report.org/2015/08/06/a-respite-from-the-dreary/