Low budget hugelkultur experiment

[Irving]

The entire length of my backyard is covered in lilac bushes and various other trees that I'm sick of trying to mow around. The plan was to tear them all out and build a 6' privacy fence instead. I've been dreading pulling all the bushes out and not having any where to put the debris, and it occurred to me that I could build similar raised beds and just fill them with the remains of the bushes and have MUCH less stuff to haul out. The raised bed idea is also a way to avoid trying to level out the yard. Thanks for having posted this. Are you just letting the beds compost until spring?

[GilpinGuy]

Sorry I haven't responded sooner. Kinda been off line for a week or so. Yeah, I plan on letting them compost until spring.

[JerryG]

Did you ever get around to planting your garden this year. Interested in how your veggies turned out.

[GilpinGuy]

Well, it wasn't a great year for anyone I know in the mountains with a garden. The spring and early summer were so wet, I think it really hurt a lot of things.

I had sugar snap peas grow like crazy. I'm going to plant a lot of them next year and have a good trellis set up. The Rocky Mtn Corn did well too. I need to get it planted earlier next spring. Some herbs did just fine, but not as well as usual. Strawberries did ok. My wild raspberries hardly fruited at all and they are usually covered with berries.

Cucumbers grew nice sized plants, but never fruited. Weird. Jalapenos, which usually grow awesome up here, never took off and I got very few peppers. Same goes for bell peppers.

All in all, a crappy year for crops. I don't think the Hugel bed was the reason though. I had herbs in pots that struggled all summer too. The experiment will continue next year.