Simple (?) Easy (?) Gardening
Or not . . .
Perhaps I’ve mentioned how much Margaret and I like our garden vegetables.
Maybe I’ve also hinted that we aren’t getting any younger – and that getting down on the ground (and up again!) to plant, weed, and harvest those potatoes/onions/carrots/broccoli/peppers gets tougher by the year.
Solution?
Ever hear of hügelkultur?
Margaret learned of this new-to-us gardening technique at a Master Gardeners seminar.
Leave it to the enterprising Germans to come up with a way to put lots of stuff into a big pile to grow things on.
Well, that IS a bit of an over-simplification . . . as Margaret and I and our son and grandson will attest.
Our version of hügelkultur isn’t just a big heap. It’s more diplomatically called a raised bed. We wanted the “heap” to be contained, so our grandson Isaac designed a box about 3 feet across, 3 feet high, and 20 feet long. With only (?) a couple hundred dollars’ worth of lumber and screws, he built a framework, which he then lined with repurposed metal roofing for which a farmer friend gave us a really good deal.
Isaac masterfully used his skid loader to scrape the soil from an old garden bed into a “save” pile, and to smooth out and level the site for the new bed. The fun continued as we followed (approximately!) the hügelkultur directions. Place chunks of dead and decaying logs on the ground inside the framework, then gradually fill the bed with smaller and smaller sticks and branches – all scavenged from our woods.
Toss in wood chips accumulated over the decades from the firewood bin in our barn. Don’t forget manure (courtesy of our same farmer friend) topped with a layer of dead grass raked up from our prairie. Make sure to water liberally between layers.
Our friendly farmer made yet another contribution from his homestead on the Garnavillo Prairie, which has some of finest topsoil in Iowa’s otherwise rocky Driftless Area. A pickup load of his beautiful, black, rich soil added another layer to the bed.
But we weren’t done yet. How about some compost for good measure? Our tiny compost pile seemed inadequate, but other Master Gardeners told us of mountains of compost available at the Linn County Landfill. Linn County? Google says that’s 77 miles from Elkader. But, heck, since our travels were taking us near the site, we stopped in and loaded the back of our SUV with 5-gallon buckets of compost. Vehicles are made to be used, right?
That fine, black, loose, mellow decayed organic matter that we brought home almost filled the garden bed. But realizing that all those base layers surely will decay and settle with the hoped-for rains in the forecast, we heaped the bed even higher with tried-and-true garden soil from Isaac’s “save” pile
And now – at the financial cost we won’t bother to calculate, and several days’ worth of labor - it’s planting time! Margaret and I are delighted to be able to stand upright beside the veggie plot, tending it at counter-top height.
The Germans swore it was a good idea.
Stay tuned to learn if the results bear that out!
It’s only a few months until home-made vegetable soup season . . .
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This link was a bit much for the general post - but perhaps of interest to the die-hards!
And, like any recipe, we reserved the right to modify . . .!
https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/sustainable-landscapes-creating-a-hugelkultur-for-gardening-with-stormwater-management-benefits.html
What a great start to the season! With that height I wouldn't plant tomatoes but the veggies you mention should work wonderfully. And I have to say, I hadn't thought of logs or sticks. I'll have to use that idea in my new raised garden. Thanks.