Hugelkultur

Its a German word that's fun to say and a way of making a "no till" "no fertilize" "no water" eventually "no plant" raised Garden bed. Here is a good link on how it works:http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur

So this was my brainstorming idea for Star to have some productive, low maintenance no till garden beds for her 70's 80's and beyond.

Here is what I have done so far:

So what I did here is grub out a rectangular bed. The bed runs roughly north-south with open areas on the east and west. So its a fairly sunny area. Its roughly 20 feet long by three feet wide. On this bed I put these really old hand hewn beams. There is an interesting story behind them.

Jeff's neighbor rescued them from a demolished building. They date to before the Civil War. He used the good ones to build a Timber frame house that he uses as a silboat building shop. They are very beautiful, you can see the hatchet marks. The ones that were a little rotted he had in a pile by the timber frame. They are some kind of really dense hardwood that no one has been able to identify. They come from the Primeval forest that once blanketed upstate NY. Really really close grained wood. 200 years old at least when they were cut. Jeff knows his wood but was unable to identify it. He showed them to a neighbor who is a carver and he had no clue either. My guess is Elm. Because since its extinct no one knows what it looks like any more.

So He cut these up with a chain saw into three foot length and I hauled them to the site from the edge of the drive way and managed to kick my own ass that day. The three foot lengths were close to a hundred lbs. Some were 4 feet. So I put these down as the foundation layer of the bed. On this foundation I placed some green polar logs Jeff cut into chunks and on top of that I placed variuous branches and sticks, some from a downed apple tree. Hardwoods are better than conifers. Over this layer I will place more rotted limbs from around the area and then mulch and manure and then finally the top soil. Then Star will plant it with buckwheat and allow it to season for the fall and winter.

Stay tuned!