Eight Acres

Several years ago now I introduced you to my " hybrid hugelkultur ".  The aim of this project was to try to rehabilitate and area of bad erosion on the slope above our shed.  It looked like the slope had been carved out to make room for the shed and the water flow from the driveway drain had been directed across the area, which was causing serious erosion. We started by moving the drain to a gentler angle and putting rocks in the drain to slow down the water.  Next we used electric fencing to keep out the cattle.  Then we were ready to set up a hugelkultur.  Hugelkultur describes the practice of burying wood in garden beds.  I call our system "hybrid" because we didn't bury the wood.  We didn't have any spare soil, so we piled the logs of wood on the surface across the slope, hoping that they would trap material that was washed down the hill and slow down the water, kind of like a swale, except that we didn't want to dig into the bank either. ...

From what I can understand, classical hugelkultur consists of piling up logs and branches, filling over with topsoil and planting on top.  The decaying wood adds fertility and heat to the heap, which is good for the plants growing above, and it also provides some heat to the heap.  I'd never heard of hugelkultur until I read about it on  Craving Fresh , I thought at the time that it was an interesting concept, especially when we have such cold winters here, but I wasn't sure what to do with it.  Then someone from our permaculture group sent around another link with some  great pictures  and I was even more interested, but still not sure what to do.  The problem is that we lack topsoil as it is, and I wasn't going to buy any.  We do have plenty of logs that are too big for the mulcher though, so I was still interested. Then we went to a permaculture techniques day with our permaculture group, and looked at some hugelkultur and swales at the Bott...