Need some hugelkultur advice | Food Production and Preservation | Forums

Lol @ Judge Smails!

Wow, you have pretty much a Sepp Holzer size Hugelbed going on there. I think Holzer wants the sides at a 70 deg angle, but your height and width are right in spec for one of his. I would be hard pressed to not take advantage of what you have already vs building a new one. They take a bit of work to put together and it really takes a season or two to charge it up. You need time for the wood to absorb the water and slowly start decaying which makes the carbon available. The good news is, that has happened already in your berm so it's ready to go. I would bet you probably don't even have to irrigate something that size. Can you imagine a garden that can go all season without being watered?

One thing I can tell you is you will need to cover the ground well around your plantings. These things are like instant life. If you have a bit of uncovered ground, something will fill that niche immediately. Make sure it's something you want because I've spent hours weeding my little 12x4 hugelbed. You can always start building another one now and if the berm doesnt work well, next season the new one will be ready to go!

You could just clear out the part that youre going to plant and see how compacted the soil is. If it's not too bad just plant into it without tilling. Tilling usually wakes up dormant weed seeds. I filled in the space between blueberries and strawberries with vetch, mustards and legumes. That way I'm building nitrogen in the soil and supressing weeds as well.