My new bed (Hugelkultur & Lasagna Gardening)

9 years ago

So last week I put this thing together.
I used materials I already had, just stacked around. I even had the exterior, star-head screws. I admit I spent some money on hay for one of the Lasagna layers. A whopping $6.00. If I'd known how easy this is, I'd have done it long ago. Now I'm looking around for places to build more beds!

Here we come:
Raised bed with bottom wood layer:

A dirt and hay layer:

And finally, ready to plant:

I made this bed with several different methods, given I'm destitute and couldn't afford to buy dirt. BUY DIRT?!? Well, the only thing they don't make more of is land, but I can make dirt.

Hugelkultur.. (Thanks Herbal!) A sustainable farming method. I got all the trees and wood from driving down my country-ish road and from my neighbor, who wasn't going to burn 2-3 year old wood. That aged wood + coffee grounds prevents the huge nitrogen drain newly cut wood would create. Plus, I'm letting it sit over the winter.

Lasagna gardening. We're all familiar with that here! My layers were:
Wood (logs, oak cabinet doors, & unfinished, 1" oak flooring)
Wood chips.
Leaves (Freecycle!)
Coffee grounds
Dirt
Cardboard
Coffee grounds & filters
Some green-ish yard waste
Hay
Dirt
Coffee grounds & filters
Wood chips. Mostly over a year old.

So... when it's all said and done, the first things to go into this 24' x 4' bed are: Sun-tolerant Japanese maples 'Tamukeyama' probably 'Japanese Sunrise' (which is far more golden yellow than this picture) and a 'Red Pygmy'.

Then, I'm going to try my hand at winter sowing again to flesh out this garden with RED flowers.

I hope you like this and it gives you incentive to try it yourself.

This post was edited by CEFreeman on Mon, Nov 17, 14 at 10:07

Comments (6)

kimka
9 years ago
Not only is this a great way to solve a bad soil problem, I'm finding it so much easier to plant and do what little weeding and leaf removal needs to be done in "raised beds" like this. It makes me wish I had done a lot more raised beds like yours instead of tilling in great wads of compost to improve my hard pan crap soil and then get down on knees to plant and then weed and blow leaves out of etc.
CEFreeman
Original Author
9 years ago
Having seen your beautiful yard, I think you could have done beds that fit into that gorgeous setting quite well. Along the left side of the house, where they built that house so close, it would have made a good divider for those horrible workers.

I realize those beds are pretty established, but you're so good with plants. Could they be lifted? I'd help you build, if you wanted to!

(Who took my images?)
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You can grow root vegetables with lasagna beds, but I recommend letting the bed age for a few months before doing so, especially if, like me, you put a lot of coarse materials into the bed. Otherwise, I find that the quality of the roots is substandard since they cannot grow as straight as otherwise. I grow a top crop first, and then use the mellowed bed for the roots. Carrots, in particular, really benefit from this wait. Renais
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I put some soil around my tomato plants just because my lasagna layers are not well mixed/even (hubby went a bit gonzo with bags of leaves in some places) and I wanted to give them a solid area to grow in initially. Also, many people say not to use pure compost for growing, to add a little soil or minerals or what have you, so that is a way to mix in a little real soil in a way that is sure to be accessible to the plants. In my other lasagna beds I never did that, although I usually spread a very thin layer of soil or finished compost on top. This one is so huge I hadn't gotten around to that step yet. Marcia
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Ok, My only real problem with growing carrots in the lasagna bed is that you need to give em a fine seedbed, keep it moist and covering over with most mulches doesn't really work well for such small delecate seedlings. Here are my experiences with roots in lasagna beds so far. My first season of gardening here I didn't have much time/materials to set up proper beds so I got produce boxes and simply dumped in compost I got free from our county. Sort of a cross between lasagna and container gardening. I did get carrots though and it is wonderful to pull carrots from soft compost in your own garden. I also planted sweet potatoes in some of those boxes (down here they are actually perennial ground covers as well as food) and the ones that grew in those compost boxes were quite easy to dig up, the ones that rooted outside the boxes on the native soil are much harder to dig up. I'm moving the vines into a mound/ridge of compost with wood chips covering it. Hopefully this will give the sweet potatoes more space to grow in soft easy to work material before rooting in the ground. I've gotten turnips and radishes from those compost filled boxes too. I have lots and lots of onions and garlic just kinda pushed into lasagna beds all over. I usually just make sure they have some nice texture compost right under them so they can root easily. I now have some carrots growing in a layered lasagna bed. Probably the most important part of doing the carrots is keeping the surface of the soil moist till they get growing. I used some fine compost to make the top layer of this bed so I could plant seed. And cover with more fine compost. I have drip irrigation running right along next to that line of carrots. The seed tapes seem to work well for this sort of planting but as long as you can keep the surface of a fine seed bed gently moist, you can grow carrots in a lasagna bed. Keep in mind that really coarse materials in a bed where carrots are growing can cause some really strange shapes to your carrots. I'm planning to plant potatoes on a bed of compost and build up layers over them. I think a deep soft lasagna bed is a wonderful thing for root crops since it makes digging/pulling them much easier. Only challenge being where grown from small seeds, one needs a fine seedbed that can be kept moist till the seedlings are well up.
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You're right, Nan, surfactants are found in lots of products. Soap and detergents are all surfactants - it's actually the surfactant molecules that surround and float dirt/grease molecules away. Guess it also floats the frog's protective slime coat away. Not surprising really. One way the issue around amphibians surfaced was when commercial herbicide was used to kill invasive exotic plants in ponds. The amphibians died - but not because of the active herbicide ingredient, but from the 1ppm surfactant in the herbicide formulation. For this reason, many people would like to see unadulterated herbicides (without other ingredients like surfactants) available to regular folks like us. At this time, for big bucks, professionals can buy the active ingredient in bulk, but smaller, affordable quantities are not marketed. No worry that toothpaste, shampoo, or any surfactants will be banned or limited - we don't ban the fossil fuels that are destroying the ozone layer, so what's a few frogs? In general, we ban things long, long after catastrophic results are obvious, and then we ban specific chemicals only when we have a method to detect that chemical - which is not trivial. Drinking water can legally contain like 2mg/L Total Organic Carbon, but virtually all the EPA monitors is volatile contaminants, which are testable in a GC (found in most labs), and make up typically around 0.2mg/L. So what are we drinking in the other 0.8mg/L? Mmmmmmm. And this attitude, my friends, is born not of a nuts-and-fruits birkinstok-wearing flower-child. It was born of too many years in a chem lab plus working with chemists at EPA labs 20 years ago, and finally standing in my own garden today, looking around and wondering what in the world we have done. I know there's harmful bacteria and fungi in the soil I play in, I eat fast food on occasion, and I know that loving strawberries means I injest a lot of pesticide, so i don't get carried away with all the dangers - if one thing doesn't kill us, another will, that's for sure. i just wish I weren't leaving such a mess for the kids to clean up. Want to get scared of your shampoo, look at the ingredients and then read http://www.ecsu.ctstateu.edu/depts/env_saf/msdspdf/sodium_dodecyl_sulfate_BP166100_Fisher.pdf#search='sodium%20lauryl%20sulfate%20msds' Here is a link that might be useful: one article from many
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kimka
9 years ago
I'm seriously thinking about it, but for a couple of years down the road when I have a little more time. I did almost nothing in the garden this past summer. I just had to take a break from the heavy gardening.
sujiwan_gw 6b MD/PA
9 years ago
Hi, I was just browsing around on gardenweb MidAtl and saw your more recent post. I have been thinking of trying hugelkultur in my yard since reading about it a couple years ago. Kuds to you for experimenting. I think there are certain types of wood better than others to use, but I don't recall which species to avoid (other than walnut, for example!)
CEFreeman
Original Author
9 years ago
Sujiwan, there are mentions of this all over the Hugelkultur sites. At least those that feel the need to instruct. :)

From what I remember, cedar, treated lumber, walnut, locust and a couple more weren't good. Things that decompose very slowly or that have antibacterial properties such as the cedar.

This was so easy. Somehow easier than the lasagna beds I made when I first moved in here, around 2002-4. Perhaps I'm braver and trust common sense that I didn't at first. ha!

Either way, I'm having all the building materials moved out of my front yard, where they've been since 2005, stacked out behind the barn, and building another long bed in front. I imagine my yard as a future courtyard area, with my Japanese maples providing some shade, but definitely beautiful visual interest.

Check out the resuse centers for lumber: Community Forklift in Edmonston (off Kenilworth Ave) or 2nd Chance in Baltimore. I got 12"w, 16' long unfinished pine for my kitchen floor at $0.25 a foot and 2nd chance. I'm going to check there for longer treated deck boards or just treated lumber. As a matter of fact, I think I've talked myself into going out there today. Got nuttin' better to do!
amanda_m
9 years ago
Looks great! You inspire me to get out there and build a hugel. Well, not right now, it is Freezing!

I will wait until the temps climb above 32 degrees!

My new bed (Hugelkultur & Lasagna Gardening)

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kimka

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My new bed (Hugelkultur & Lasagna Gardening)

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kimka

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kimka

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