This intimidating word is really a simple method of building up garden soil. Hugelkultur is a permaculture gardening technique where dead wood is buried in the soil to add nutrients and regulate moisture.
Dead wood such as the downed limbs found around the garden after a storm are gathered in the site where the new garden bed will be. Lay the limbs close together to prevent settling. On top of the limbs pile yard waste and other unfinished compost. The top layer is a blanket of finished compost or garden soil.
Be sure to only use dead material when building because it may keep growing otherwise. A friend of mine once put fresh cut honeysuckle limbs as the base of her hugelkultur bed and they sprouted and grew forcing her to completely start over. To kill aggressive lawn plants in the area of the new bed cover the soil with cardboard before starting the first layer.
The system works because the buried rotting wood slowly decomposes underground releasing nutrients into the lower layers of soil. The spongy wood also is great at holding excess moisture and keeping the bed at an even moisture level.
I have tried a few hugelkultur beds in my garden and find that they can be immediately planted with short lived perennials or annuals. I would warn against putting them too close to trees since I have experienced several trees dyeing in the vicinity of the hugelkultur bed. I’m guessing that this is because of all the decomposition going on underground robbing the soil of some necessary nutrient that is bound up in the decomposition process. I recommend planting shallow rooted plants around the bed until the full decomposition process has run it’s course. Tomatoes are a great first year plant and then move to perennials in year two.
The big benefit of the hugelkultur bed is in a productive method of removing yard waste in an attractive and un-smelly system. Fall is a great time to build a hugelkultur bed by gathering all the yard debris, piling it in the correct order, and there will be a fresh bed to plant in spring.
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