twenty third January 2016 • In The Garden • Stephanie Donaldson
Hugelkultur is a permaculture method that’s often used to create a raised mattress on a flat piece of land by protecting the realm with logs, topping them with branches after which including progressively finer supplies earlier than topping the entire thing off with about 25cm of excellent high quality soil and compost. It creates a mound that steadily subsides because the decrease layers decompose, releasing vitamins and making a wealthy natural soil that’s moisture retentive and full of useful microorganisms. Discover out extra concerning the method at www.permaculture.org.uk.
One of many outcomes of the arduous landscaping to create my new vegetable backyard with its deep terraced beds, is that extra soil was wanted to carry them as much as the proper stage. As a substitute of importing a great deal of topsoil, I’ve employed a type of reverse hugelkultur method. With every mattress, we dug down a few meter deep on one half, piling the soil on the opposite half – after which began constructing our layers, firstly the logs, then twigs after which a thick layer of combined shreddings, earlier than protecting it with the returned soil – after which we repeated the method with the opposite half of the mattress.
The outcome was satisfactorily crammed beds. Lastly, we added a layer of sieved compost to create a reasonably fantastic seedbed (in addition to introducing a number of microorganisms to the disturbed soil) after which tucked all of it up with a layer of fleece.
What an excellent begin to the gardening 12 months.
