Why hugel?

Today, someone asked me the logical question- Why hugel?  Why go to the effort of mounding logs, manure, dirt, and mulch?  Does it have greater production than your other gardens?  Why go to all the extra hassle?

The Orchard in January

I wish I had more experience with other types of gardening so that I could compare and contrast better.  But, alas, I don't. 

The Orchard in June

I will say that the fact I am gardening at all is a testament to hugels and to hugeling.  (Yep, we've turned the German noun into a verb.)

First, let me say a little about hugels themselves.  When we hugel, we're trying to mimic nature's process- wind knocks trees down, animals browse the leaves and deposit manure, dirt gets kicked up over the logs, leaves and plant stems cover it in the fall, and the cycle of life in the forest is renewed.  We just speed up the process to days instead of years- logs, manure, dirt, mulch, plants. 

 

 The center of the driveway turnaround Fall 2012

And in the process, we create a garden which is much easier for me to use.  

 Let the hugeling begin!

 I am 42 years old and despite much progress, I am simply not agile enough to spend all my time doubled over reaching towards the ground.  Hugels allow me to garden from my ankles to my shoulders making the work much easier for me to do. 

 

In addition, there are advantages to gardening in 3D.  I have become accustomed to being able to see more of my garden at a time, like the difference between making eye contact with people in folding chairs on the gym floor versus the same people in bleachers.  In the same way as I can make eye contact better, so can the sunshine.  It's easier to ensure that everyone is getting light, tall or short.  Plus, I get more surface area to plant in the same space.  (The shortest distance between two points is a straight line like flat ground and we're purposely taking a longer curve from Point A to Point B over the top of the mound.)  As I garden better, I will be able to produce more in a small space using hugels.

Thirdly, I like being able to have different 'microclimates' specifically being able to adjust the amount and timing of sunshine.  I planted my tomatoes on the sunny, southern face right next to the blacktop driveway for maximum heat and sun.  Meanwhile, I planted my lettuce on the northeastern face which gets more direct morning sun and less during the heat of the day. 

"Yeah, yeah," I can hear you saying, "That's all well and good but surely there's got to be an easier way to accomplish this rather than hauling logs and dirt around?"  If it was only about convenience and curved lines, there probably is a more convenient way. 

However, hugels have at least 6 additional advantages.

 

 Hugel 1 covered in dirt nad manure

1.  Nutrition- All the nutrients those trees stored over years is released into my plants' roots slowly over time.  Combined with the manure, we've got great fertility all without expensive chemical fertilizers. 

2.  Water retention- Rotting logs soak up water like a sponge when it rains and then release that moisture to the roots of my plants as needed.  Also, mounds on a hillside catch the rain runoff and give more of it a chance to soak in rather than flowing away downhill, especially if openings and ends are staggered to force the water to wind back and forth, preventing a fast flowing rivulet straight down. 

  

 

 Hugels with some leaf and cardboard mulch

3.  Erosion prevention- If the logs are placed perpendicular to the slope, then any eroding dirt is caught and held within a few feet of where it started.  We have experienced no significant loss of topsoil even after clear cutting on a 30 degree slope in our orchard because of this.  The hugels' winding path also forces people to walk back and forth, again preventing those straight line paths which are so prone to erosion.

Note the hugels perpendicular to the slope with staggered openings

4.  Heat- As the logs, manure, and mulch compost they release heat making the ground stay warmer, longer.  Because we have relatively small hugels, we will see a small gain but those who create hill size hugels (think Sepp Holzer) can harvest root vegetables from the unfrozen ground beneath snow cover because of the heat released from the decomposing core below.  We're on the border between Zone 4a and 4b.  Perhaps once decomposition is in full swing, we'll experience enough gains to keep us solidly in 4b so the trees do better.  Or perhaps we'll gain a few days in spring and fall.  Time will tell.

In the middle of the hugels with cardboard and plywood temporary 'mulch'

November 2012

5.  Angle of the sun-  This is a hard one for me to explain half so well as Eliot Coleman did in his book Four Season Harvest.  Basically, for every so many degrees the soil angles up off the ground towards the sun, the microclimate gains enough sunshine to change its effective latitude slightly more towards the equator.  Like I said, better with his diagrams and maps.  By increasing the slope of my dirt to an angle more favorable for receiving and absorbing the rays of the sun through mounding over logs, I change the latitude of my microclimate to my advantage. If I combine this with the heat from decomposition in #4 above, eventually it might be possible for us to gain a whole zone (from 4a to 5a).  Or perhaps during a hard winter, our advantage might keep fruit trees alive which otherwise would have died.  Or maybe we'll extend our growing season a week on either side.  We'll see.

Late May 2013- Tomato Guild on the southern exposure

6.  Convenience- Many of these functions could be accomplished by other means- plastic trays, wooden tables, rock walls, etc.  However, the trees were here and free and once we cut them down, they were in the way.  I feel more clever when I'm thrifty.

Tomato Guild late July 2013

7.  Microorganisms-  The microscopic living plants, fungi, and creatures in the soil are responsible for translating the minerals in the dirt into bioavailable nutrients that plant roots can absorb.  Without these wee workers, plants have a more difficult road to productivity.  Repeated disruptions of the soil community like tilling, are hard on the microorganisms, decreasing natural nutrition and increasing dependence on chemical fertilizers over time while occasional disruptions like natural disasters seem to increase activity.  (See Farm for the Future and YouTube videos of Sepp Holzer, Part 1 and then follow links, for more science.)  Therefore, hugels which mimic natural soil processes are a strong option for soil fertility.  Plus, it's impossible to till a hugel so I'm not tempted to borrow a neighbor's rototiller even on the bad weed days. 

Well, we're beginners and all theory aside, we've got a lot to experiment with and learn about hugels. But, boy, are we having a good time trying.

First carrot- Way to harvest, Mark!

Garden update

Kifah, my neighbor who knows how to garden, came over this morning.  We've started swapping help Sunday mornings and last week I got to help seed her straw bale garden and this week we worked on mine.  After looking everything over and talking about it with Kifah, I decided it was time to take photos and journal.

I wasn't sure which title fits best:
"I've got good news and bad news."
"The good, the bad, and the weedy"
Or "Failing successfully"

A number of things are failing completely.
And some things are succeeding enthusiastically.

Lettuce is my glowing success.

We've been eating lettuce 1-2 times/day for a month, sharing with neighbors and friends, and we've still got plenty.  We've got 6 heirloom lettuces-red, green, green with red speckles- very fun.  And we've got pak choy, and purslane plus some volunteer Lamb's Quarters.  This I consider a special boon because I had meant to plant lamb's quarters but ordered lamb's ears instead.  So finding volunteers makes me feel rich.

This is a very diligent pak choy plant.  I've been eating pak choy almost daily in my breakfast eggs.  I'm having fantasies about breakfasts of greens from my garden and eggs from my chickens.  This is heady stuff for a novice farmer.

Thanks to Kifah and Kari for saving my Jajarkot and Tomato Guild gardens.  They weeded for hours with me when the weeds were shoulder tall and coached me through my weed vs plant questions.  The garden sprang back into action and now Kifah is teaching me about mulching. 

Today we found bean plants going gangbusters with green beans and some very promising broccoli plants and turnips, too. 

I had planted these sprouts in a mulchy area and I am now a big fan of mulched sprouts.  These have grown substantially better, with less weed competition than their seed-started, unmulched peers.  Next year- more sprouts, more mulch.

Look at that lush growth!  That's the Jajarkot Garden in full swing.

 Underground secrets for fall. 

This is a volunteer potato plant from our compost pile which Kifah weeded, mounded, and mulched.  Behind is a portion of hugel where nothing I planted sprouted among all the weeds.  So Kifah, brave gardener, encouraged me to do succession planting for fall.  We put in lettuce, pak choy, purslane, parsnips, carrots, kale, collards, chard, and rutabagas hoping for a late fall crop. 

 Fall hopes in bare dirt

The Tomato Guild is a mixed bag.  The tomatoes and some peppers are doing well- green fruits waiting for some more sunny hot.  Basil and sage seem to be a complete loss.  You can see weeds from previous weeks on the driveway.  We're planning to take the fence down for the winter and when we put it back up in the spring, I'm going to put cardboard down from the edge of the driveway to the bottom of my plants so it's harder for weeds to spread.  Kifah's idea.

The downhill section of the Tomato Guild hugel is too steep.  It's been eroding and growing exclusively weeds.  The earliest hugels are taller and steeper while our later ones are shorter and wider.  Turns out that physical exhaustion and rushed days worked in our favor.  The short, wide ones are significantly more productive than the taller, more ambitious ones. 

So we're going to raise the dirt levels inside, possibly using logs to hold the dirt and create a weed barrier.  And until we have tons of acreage and machinery like Sepp Holzer, we'll be building shorter, wider hugels in the future.

We're considering options for the outside close to the driveway.  We might take some logs off the top or we might try to strategically place a board to hold deeper dirt or we might plant something with runners like strawberries.  Or I just thought we might put our burlap bag potatoes there inside the fence.  Maybe it'll self-correct once it's decayed a bit.  Not sure yet.  Something will come. 

The Three Sisters Garden is growing like gangbusters with comparatively few weeds.  Squash blossoms are everywhere, the corn is tall, and the beans are growing right up the stalks as advertised.
 

The raised beds constructed of logs with dirt and manure inside and thick mulch on top, which we call 'inverted hugels', have worked out really, really well.  It's easy to find my plants, easy to reach the weeds, easy to see progress.  This raised-bed-a-la-hugel style is one I'm hoping for a lot more of next year.

-

All my Native American seeds are thriving.  Way to go you clever First Nations of the Upper Midwest!  I'm definitely interested in trying more Native American seeds and approaches next year. 

The Orchard Trees are doing well- 26 of 28 are thriving.  Some even have fruit.  Impressive.  Yeah, Tim! 

The Orchard Garden- the veggies rather than the trees- is a complete loss this year.  The ground which was bare this spring is growing every sun-loving, vigorous, hurried native plant which ever cast a patient seed in the forest praying for just such a tree-removing catastrophe as we provided.  


 Kifah and I found some spindly asparagus, a stunted rhubarb, some 4-inch tall kale, and popsicle sticks labeled 'onion' with no sign whatsoever of onions or any other annual or perennial of my choice.  Ok, maybe 2 others, but of the hundreds of seeds, sprouts, potato pieces, onion starts, etc. which we planted, this is very meager.  Very meager.

 Note Tim's cardboard weed suppression plan in action

The terrain is very difficult, erosion is a real danger especially when the ground's wet, and the tripping hazards are hidden under profuse growth.  Kifah and I got a path or two in and turned around because it was so treacherous and so little of what I planted could be found.  

It's possible that if we weeded, more would grow.  But given how much time the other gardens are taking, we're going to cut our losses now rather than risk losing everything else to weeds, too.

We're going to maintain the other gardens and take a more measured pace in The Orchard.  Tim's got a great plan for reclaiming one path's worth of hugels per year by using cardboard followed by clover for weed suppression, putting a second log next to a hugel, filling in the space between with dirt and manure and mulch, then planting perennials which we tend closely for a year until they are established.  Then the next year, we move on to the next path's hugels.  I'm hoping that in 5 year's time, I'll have the top four, easiest paths' hugels covered in nice perennial gardens of asparagus, rhubarb, perennial greens, walking onions, chives, mint, herbs, garlic, etc.  Given how much food production potential we're getting from the hugels and inverted hugels we have already, 4 more paths of production is a lot.

And given the tricky terrain and erosion issues of the lower hugels, we might just let it 'go native' except for weed suppression around the trees.  There are flowers for bee food and serious ground cover growing with no help from us.  That's good enough for now and we'll see about later.  Maybe we'll take goats for browsing walks down there someday. :)

 
This is my Survivor Garden all overgrown.  It has survived again with the possible exception of the sage which I can't find.  It is on some of the worst soil on our whole property.  Even the mint is struggling.  I'm going to either create a raised bed next to the rock here with some better soil or I'm going to move the whole thing to a better location or maybe a bit of both.  It's time to move these dear encouragements to a better place where they can thrive rather than survive.

The Berry Patch is doing well despite the press of weeds.  Tim's been patiently suppressing grass with dark tarps and anticipates moving them and seeding clover soon.  

He's also been adding pink tape around the top of the deer fencing and will be adding support wire soon.
 

 Grass is persistent.  But so far, his berry bushes and nurse plants are holding their own.

We planted some corn, squash, melons, zucchini, and other large space, sun-loving plants out here. It's hard to see in the photo above but there is corn growing.

 Some squash are flowering.  And I'm hoping a melon might make an appearance, too.

Finally, The Meadow Slope with sheet mulch by the 4H-ers and planting of native wildflowers for bees.  This started off slowly but has done well.
 

Interestingly, a number of the seeds we've planted are the same as the surrounding native plants.  From one perspective, this seems a little redundant.  But turned just slightly, this means we got the right seed mix from Seed Savers Exchange in Iowa.  Even if a number of the species are here already, chances are some of the 20+ native wildflowers and 20+ native grasses we planted will be new.

As our permaculture consultant Paula taught us, one of our most important jobs as permaculture farmers is to cultivate diversity.  Bees will preferentially spread their favorites, she said, and our job is to continue to spread and seed the others so a nice mix is maintained.

 We're on our way!

The Dance of Kindness

This last year since moving, Tim and I talk frequently about The Dance of Kindness, the circle of giving and receiving which creates bonds of friendship.

Let me illustrate.  When we began attending church in Lindstrom, a woman named Diane turned around after a service and struck up a conversation with us which lead to a church tour, other introductions, and an invitation to a Sunday School class.  We went to the class and then we asked for horse manure from her horses for our garden and she offered the use of her truck.  We shoveled manure into her pick-up while she explained to us why we needed a cat.  We were sure we didn't need a cat and more sure we didn't want a cat but we met the stray cat she'd just rescued anyway and agreed to think about adopting him.  On the way home, I explained that the next move in the Dance of Kindness was ours and for that alone, I thought we should take the cat.  The next day, we brought Diane's family a pie and agreed to take him.  She had him vet checked first and we brought him home and named him Zed.  When he presented us with his first mouse kill, Tim paraded Zed around the house on his shoulder while we cheered and clapped.  We've been mouse-free ever since.  But better than the cat, we've gained family friends.

 

Zed

 

I remember last fall my amazement at this process.  I understood this dance, exchanging favors and kindnesses and friendship.  Often before, I felt like the currency of exchange in community was coolness points or beauty or a specific interest which I didn't have.  But not here.  Here the currency is kindness.

We share extra vegetables.  The neighbors bring house warming gifts and give us a ride on their 4-wheeler.

The neighbor we'd never met plows us out on the first big snow before we have a truck.  Tim plows the whole road to the corner when we do have a truck.

The farmers sell us great milk cheap and manure for our garden and we prioritize participating in their community service project and stop by to see their kids' cows at the fair.  

Looking for every opportunity to share- that's fun and thrifty and clever.  Would you like our scrap wood?  Have some lettuce.  Sure, put your garbage in with our special pick-up; we've already paid the truck fee.  I'll trade you help with your blog set-up for installing my light sockets.  

My neighbor Kifah and I on our first Sunday morning gardening swap.

She has more experience and chatting makes the chores fly.

And here's where this Dance gets really interesting- often the next best move is to need something.  Can we see your bees?  How do you maple syrup?  Could you come and teach me which plants in my garden are weeds and which are my vegetables?  Could you incubate guinea eggs for me?  Could I ride your horse?  Would you teach us how to fish? 

 Mark and our neighbor Kiernan with the bird house he built with scrap wood from our basement.

Woodworker has wood; we have basement space.  Plus we've commissioned a bat house.

Both giving and receiving become part of the relationship.  And contrary to expectations, being willing to receive is as important as creative giving.  Perhaps this learning on our part is one of the reasons why we have so many friends all of a sudden.

I gotta say that being part of a community which does this Dance of Kindness routinely and generally- lots of people, all the time- makes a huge difference in our quality of life.  It's really fun waiting to see how the next problem will be solved or where the next generosity will come from or how excess will become someone's answer.

We are very, very grateful.







 

What I hate about living in the sticks

What I hate about living in the country can be boiled down to:
1.  Icks
2.  Ticks
3.  Sticks

There are just so many dirty, slimey, muddy, gooey, stinky things in the country.
And the whole blood-sucking, disease-spreading thing- that doesn't take much imagination, either.

 

But sticks as an object of loathing- as a city dweller, I didn't see that coming.

I see now why living in the sticks is a derogatory phrase for country living.

I hate sticks.
Sticks are everywhere on our property- causing an obstruction, clutching at legs and arms, scraping thorns through flesh, tripping feet, thwacking one in the face, applying burrs and prickers to every available surface.

A stake waiting to impale

Seriously, the day we rented The Mother Shredder and our branches met their Mulcher was a good, good day.  Nothing quite so satisfying as thinking bad words at inanimate objects while shoving them into a frighteningly loud, super powerful machine which chews up frustrations and spits out mulch.  Very therapeutic.  I highly recommend a good chipper shredder day.

It was also cathartic that the most irritating branches, these v-shaped ones sticking out in several directions trying to put someone's eye out, would jam even The Mother.  I took some solace as I grabbed these bad boys out of her maw that even She couldn't overcome them all.