Hugelkultur, pronounced Hoo-gul-culture, means hill culture or hill mound. It is nothing more than making raised garden beds filled with rotten wood. It makes those beds loaded with organic material, nutrients, air pockets for the roots of what you plant. As years go by, your raised garden bed becomes incredibly rich and loaded with soil life.
The design is very simple - basically piling up wood logs, wood branches, and wood chips then plant in it.
I have a few goals in mind and Hugelkultur becomes a solution.
My goals are:
- Increase food production in my small suburban farm
- Get rid of some organic debris
- Reduce some hardscape surface on my circular concrete driveway
Hugelkultur is the solution!
First I pile organic debris on top of my concrete driveway. Starting from wood logs on the bottom and ending up with wood chips on the top.
I waited for 2 months, made holes on top of Hugelkultur and filled each hole with about 2 quarts/liters of compost, and planted my tomatoes. (I was waiting for the rain to fully soak up the bed; otherwise, I could have planted right away if watering it thoroughly.)
The picture below shows my tomato plants after 2 weeks of planting.
The picture below shows my tomato plants after 2 weeks of planting.
A closer look at the tomato plant
More tomatoes just planted in another Hugelkultur on my driveway. (lemon, sugar apple, asparagus in the picture, too)
In summary, Hugelkultur is a perfect no-dig solution for turning organic waste into raised garden beds for your productive food plants even on hard surfaces.
