This is a form of horticulture whereby a raised bed is created by layering organic material into a dug-out area that is eventually filled up to the top and eventually can create a mound or raised bed.
You begin by digging the area you wish to become your planting bed and filling the hole with wood debris and other forms of compost such as twigs, leaves and biomass. So the bottom layer is thickest and the top of the bed is soft compost ready for planting.
We did a small-scale version of this in our garden and managed to grow so much in this tiny space.
A designated area about 50cm x 1,2m
Dig down as far as you can, while considering how much biomass you have to fill it, could be 1m or 50cm. Whatever you can manage.
We filled about 3 of these 20L buckets digging out existing soil, as you can see the soil here is mostly clay-like and not ideal for planting so this is a good example of how the Hugelkultur method works so well.
Start to fill it using bigger logs first, then twigs, leaves and finally broken down compost
Spray it down with water and give it a good soak to settle the biomass and reduce the air pockets. The water also helps create a bit of heat so it breaks down a bit quicker.
Depending on your compost you can plant immediately or spend more time creating more beds while the initial ones break down over timer providing all the needed nutrients for great plant growth. As the beds sink, just continue adding compost on top and soon you will have 1m deep growing beds filled with good organic matter for growing!
Good Luck!!
