By JESSICA DAMIANO
I don’t have an enormous property, so I strategize to get essentially the most use of the backyard I've, and that features planting greens and herbs in raised beds and containers.
I’ve been rising edibles in two 4-by-4-foot cedar containers that my husband constructed about 10 years in the past, and each few years, I spend money on copious quantities of compost and natural topsoil to refill them. Some buddies backyard in a lot bigger beds and the fee to fill them would make your salad spin.
A greater methodology, “Hugelkultur,” is alleged to have been utilized in Germany and jap Europe for hundreds of years as a part of a extra intensive permaculture system, which maintains that nature needs to be left to do its personal factor with as little human interference as potential. That features permitting logs, branches and different plant particles to decompose into nutrient-rich soil, as it could on a forest ground, which is arguably higher than something that is available in a bag.
Hugelkultur, or “hill tradition,” has been a darling of the permaculture world because the Seventies, however has been gaining mainstream and social-media consideration currently.
It may be utilized in raised beds or in mounds (or berms) instantly on the bottom.
Right here’s the way it works:
As an alternative of filling deep raised beds solely with bought soil and compost, create a layered basis of yard waste to scale back the quantity of soil wanted and enhance vitamins and plant yields.
Begin by constructing about 40 p.c of the depth of your field with a base layer of outdated firewood or logs from hardwood bushes like maple, oak, poplar or birch (bonus factors if the wooden is rotted). Softwoods from needled evergreens are additionally acceptable however will decompose extra shortly. By no means embody pressure-treated wooden, which incorporates toxins; wooden from black locust or redwood bushes, that are decay-resistant; or wooden from allelopathic bushes like black walnut, which launch growth-inhibitors into the soil.
High the logs with smaller items of wooden, like fallen branches, twigs and sticks to comprise the following 10 p.c of depth.
Subsequent, add a layer of leaves, grass clippings, and different gentle plant particles, plus kitchen scraps like fruits, greens and eggshells (by no means embody meat, oils or animal merchandise like cheese, or canine or cat droppings). Guarantee these recent substances additionally fill areas within the woody layer beneath them —after which water the pile nicely.
Lastly, add a layer every of compost and topsoil in equal quantities, wetting every layer as you construct.
For those who’re making a free-standing mound, determine how large you’d prefer it to be and dig a 1-foot-deep trench as its basis (save the sod in case you are eradicating turf grass). Bear in mind will probably be simpler to plant and harvest in your mound if it’s not more than 3 toes tall.
Fill the ditch with logs, and prime with a thick layer of twigs, sticks and branches.
High the woody layers with upside-down sections of the eliminated sod, or cardboard, and canopy with kitchen scraps, compost and topsoil, as above, watering and tamping down as you go. Intention for a mound that’s wider at its base than its prime.
To maximise gardening house, plant the perimeters in addition to tops of berms.
Because the natural matter in Hugelkultur beds breaks down, the peak of the mound will sink; merely prime off with compost as wanted. That decay may even heat and aerate the soil, drastically scale back the necessity for irrigation (beginning within the second or third 12 months), and supply vegetation with a long-term provide of vitamins (fertilize recurrently throughout the first two rising seasons, earlier than decomposition actually will get cooking).
Anticipate Hugelkultur beds to supply wealthy, fertile soil, elevated harvests, bigger vegetation — and financial savings — for as much as 20 years.
—-
Jessica Damiano writes recurrently about gardening for The Related Press. A grasp gardener and educator, she writes The Weekly Grime publication and creates an annual wall calendar of day by day gardening ideas. Ship her a notice at jessica@jessicadamiano.com and discover her at jessicadamiano.com and on Instagram @JesDamiano.