First attempt - 2024 11 09

 




My friend, Virginia, is having to dig up her garden to make way for a laneway house. She has given me a collection of plants to re-home. Yesterday I constructed my first garden mounds using the hugelkulur method. 

The first step was to dig and rake back the garden soil I put down last spring. The soil that was placed on cardboard last spring came up easily. The sections where I ran out of cardboard were threaded with fine white roots from the poplar tree. It's roots go everywhere.

The second step was to pile leaves from the poplar tree to make a thick bed to lay a foundation for each garden mound.

The third step was to pile the garden soil on top of the leaves. 

The fourth step was to bring a large helping of compost from the kitchen bins. This compost is also full of worms.

The fifth and last step was to plant some of the transplants from Virginia into the new mounds. 

What I like about this method:

  1. The worms can go up and down between the ground and the mound - when it gets really cold, they will be able to stay warm under the mound. When the weather warms up they will be able to get up into the mound to make castings around the plant roots;
  2. The mounds are moveable from season to season, I will be able to re-organize and re-construct the location, plantings, and composition of the soil each season;
  3. The leaves create a semi-permeable membrane - the worms can get through and will also turn the leaves into castings, the tree roots will be hindered enough to allow food plants to thrive;
  4. The mounds will retain moisture when the drought comes in the summer. I will make depressions in the mound to hold water so it seeps into the centre of the mound, encouraging deep plant roots into the centre of the mound;
  5. I will be able to use garden bags of dirt, with holes punched in the bottom so the worms can get in and out, as a garden border, helping to retain moisture, thwart tree roots and extend the growing surface of the raised beds.
The first mounds were installed yesterday, late in the afternoon before the rainstorm hit. 

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