FIELD NOTES: Hugelkultur
I
~by Jim Eagleman
know a few gardeners who like to experiment. Their trial and error attempts at growing different things, composting, starting seeds under different conditions, impresses me. Like anyone curious, they want to see the results of their efforts. With evaluation of production, more and different gardening methods are employed. The true experiment I recall from my science classes involves undertaking a procedure to make a discovery or test
54 Our Brown County • Nov./Dec. 2020
a hypothesis. You suspect something and set out to see if it happens. An investigation into an unknown can produce results that can be both predictable and surprising. And that, to a gardener—I am told since I do not consider myself even a poor one—is the fun part! My sister-in-law’s experimentation with a gardening attempt intrigued me. She and my brother-in-law sent pictures of their garden a few weeks ago, at the end of a successful growing season. They read of an Austrian technique called hugelkultur, or mound gardening. Raised beds have been used for years by successful gardeners; dirt from side trenches is added and the additional dirt that allows root vegetables like carrots and beets to grow into aerated soil. The side trenches also give you a place to walk while tending to the plants. The mounds with the hugel approach are built using all kinds and sizes of wood: cut stumps, long logs, limbs and branches, twigs, leaves—everything from the tree. And the idea is to have it rot and enrich the soil. A trench is dug about a foot deep, maybe four to five feet wide, and the wood debris is placed end to end in the trench. Here any compost is added, also newspaper, clean cardboard, and yard waste (no treated lumber or mulch) before dirt covers the trench. Over time, as the wood material decomposes, nutrients not originally present are now slowly added to enrich and supplement the soil. This was why her garden was so successful, the rotting wood slowly added nutrients the plants needed, now and for future seasons. I went online to look up the hugel method of mound gardening and found it is used all through Europe and is fast catching on with American gardeners. It
