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Entry Date
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Nick Name
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Location
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Tuesday, January 07, 2025
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Little Ketchup
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Grittyville, WA
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Entry 12 of 14 |
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150 sq ft hugelkultur? I'm going to share some thoughts and ideas on this because although I dismissed this idea a long time ago, (and Ive never seen anyone else post anything showing it can lead to better than average results) I'm now thinking about it again.
Buckle in.
I think there are two reasons hugelkultur doesnt give fantastic results and its a waste of time and effort:
First, it doesn't introduce any nutrients that the soil doesnt already have. If you bury a fish under a corn plant, it gives nitrogen in the form of amino acids and also minerals from the ocean (or maybe its a freshwater fish, then it might only provide nitrogen). But putting a locally grown log under a plant only provides the minerals that the local soil already has.
Second, I have found that air gaps and roots are not compatible. I dont know why this is, maybe it has to do with soil pests or water and nutrient movement or something or the roots themselves dont know where to spread when they (incorrectly) sense they are near the soil surface. The roots of most plants really just dont like all those big gaps. Layering wood like this just creates a lot of volume of space that the roots wont use very effectively.
And last of all its like putting (really big) wood chips in the soil which for most soils is a no-no. Walnuts mixed into brownies might be good... but wood chips mixed into garden soil just isnt good, for various reasons, even without any airgaps. Contrary to the idea that soil should have air in it, air gaps of this size really only makes the situation worse.
But hold on, even with all that being said, I might fiddle with throwing some cottonwood in the ground. Why? Well, first its so worthless as firewood. Its like a big wet sponge and even after drying it for ages, it has no significant heat value or burn time. 2nd, maybe it could have benefits, if it could be done in a way that eliminated all the drawbacks (including excessive effort).
So, yeah. I am thinking about trying my own version of hugelculture just to see if I can tease any little net benefit out of it. So many people have tried and failed to get it to really work. But what if this old german tradition really used to work? Maybe we're just not doing it right...
Clearly we are not doing it right.
Well, I was going to post my own ideas on it in more detail but thats a long enough post. Just the intro here.
I guess later on, if what I try works, then I'll explain more about what I did and why it actually worked. This is too lengthy already, sheesh.
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