Ramona, Permaulture, and the Hugelculture

It's been a bit since my last post, so let me catch you up. In 2009 when Todd left the Air Force and we decided to move home to San Diego we were starting from scratch. We rented a few different places, and once both of us had stable jobs we decided to buy a home. We bought what we considered a starter home, it was small had lots of work to be done and was definitely not in the best neighborhood, or  school district (mind you it could have been much worse), but it wasn't a place we wanted to stay forever. Fast forward 4 years and about a ton of elbow grease later, Todd and I decided that it was time to move, our house's value had risen enough that we would be able to get something nicer, but not too much, meaning it still looked like a great deal. So now we are caught up to present. We've bought a home on the outskirts of San Diego, in Ramona. Ramona is a beautiful city, not quite rural but definitely not like it is in the city. The air is fresh, the views are stunning, and the properties are big. Our place is about an acre and a half, which is a lot, and as you can imagine I'm itching to make it my own. We're lucky in that it is a blank slate, with no real water hungry landscaping, but unlucky in that there are no mature fruit trees (just dozens of eucalyptus). After moving up here my brother in law lent me his copy of "Gaia's Garden-A Guide to Home Scale Permacultre" by Toby Hemenway. I must say that this book has changed my view of gardening and has really inspired me, which wouldn't matter except I've got that big piece of land staring at me daring me to go on and do something (much to Todd's dismay). Which brings me to today, Todd is away in Portland. I'm sure he's having a grand ol' time as he's with my soon to be brother in law for his bachelor party, but it also leaves me here, at home, with no one telling me not to start a new project. I've been telling him for a few weeks now that I want to build a Hugelculture, which is just a strange Germanic word for raised bed garden that is filled with logs and sticks. Todd's been going crazy with me talking about it non-stop, so today, with him away, I pulled out my tools and decided to go ahead and make one. The supposed benefit of using a Hugelculture has to do with the ability of dead wood to absorb water, a well watered hugel retains moisture and so doesn't need to be watered as often, not to mention that the organic matter inside the hugel breaks down over years and feeds the plants planted in it and also replenishes the dirt around it. Another great feature is that on our gently sloped yard it creates a swale, which when, or if, it rains it will create a barrier slowing runoff and increasing the ability of the rain water to be absorbed into the ground. It is obvious that our yard allows water to drain a bit too freely during a rain storm, something I intend to remedy.

So the first step was finding a good location for my hugel, it needed to be on a slope, within reach of a hose, and also not too centrally located (as this was a semi covert operation and I don't need to cause unnecessary trouble with the hubby). I settled on a spot next to the driveway with a good amount of slope where lots of runoff can be collected, and where a hose will reach until California sees some rain.

Even though the slope was already there, I had to clear it more to create a flat spot to pile up all my logs and branches, I wanted to make the hugel start at the bottom of the slope but be about as tall as the existing hill, needless to say it was a lot of digging in very hard dirt, but hey it doubles as a workout, and I love multitasking.

One small problem was the amount of weed debris I created when clearing the spot, out place had been empty for a good while before we moved in and the amount of uncut brush, and invasive thistle is pretty daunting. I decided to use the little knowledge of composting and the even larger amount of ignorance I have to "hide" all that awful weed seed infested organic matter in my hugel bed, a compost heap can kill the weed seeds due to the heat created by decomposing matter, so I took the easy way out and just filled the bottom of my ditch with the pile of weeds (Yes, this will most likely come back and haunt me, but it can't be worse that it was).

I did however, create a barrier between the weeds themselves and my hugel insides, just to be on the safe side, cardboard is a great tool for smothering unwanted plants, so I used it as the base of my hugel and began piling.

The next step involved scavenging my yard for stumps, logs, and branches that were hiding under bushes and in thecreek bed. It didn't take long, I have enough dead wood lying around for another 3-5 hugels, easy. One problem is making sure that I don't use too much eucalyptus, as a hugel made of all eucalyptus could be bad for the garden, it has allelopathic properties, which just means it's toxic and can stunt other plants from growing around it, did I mention how many eucalyptus trees are on our property? It's obscene, no wonder it's just a wide open dirt patch. Fortunately we have a variety of trees in varying stages of breaking down all over the yard.

Now is where the dirty work begins. Did I mention that there used to be horses on our property? Probably not, it's really neither here nor there, except that we have a surplus of manure all along our fence line, just waiting to be put to better use.

Between all the horse manure, and the mess that our chicken flock creates, I was able to cover the entire hugel in a nitrogen rich layer of, well, dung. This will help keep the mound more balanced and able to support plants more readily, it was however not the most pleasant portion of the entire hugel experience. At least it was all free, I'm sure slopping paid for poop is more upsetting that slopping free poop, but only just.

At this point I got the pile nice and wet to make sure the inside of the hugel wasn't starting out dry, the wetter it is in the beginning the less I'll have to water it over time. I also wanted to make sure that the pile would stay put, even if it got wet, I don't want all my hard work washing away at the first rain. After a good soaking I simply pushed the original dirt back over the hugel. This is where, if Todd were home he'd intervene. Luckily he isn't here so we didn't have to go off to the nursery and buy garden soil. I like to use the free dirt that came with the house (are you starting to see my cheap streak)? Sure garden soil might look better, so dark and loamy, but we're creating healthy soil from the bottom up. If this comes back to haunt me, so be it; at least I didn't waste any money in the mean time.

So what did I get out of this project? I mean so far it looks like all I did was dig a big trench in a hillside, just to put all the dirt back to once again have a hillside, oh yeah did I mention how much poop I had to shovel? Well, for one, I got the satisfaction of knowing that I'm starting the process of making my property more water wise, once we do get rain I'll be storing a little bit of it right there in that mound and the plants I plant there will be lush and green without me having to turn on the hose. I'm also building better soil, which will benefit us for years. But best of all I was able to make my property produce, there is nothing better than sweating over a piece of land and being able to reap, literally a harvest from your hard work.  Very soon my hugel will be providing us with kale, chard, arugula, rosemary, chives, carrots, beets, garlic, green beans, and strawberries (sounds like a lot right, but that mound is huge 4ftx8ft and 3 dimensional).

All this before noon, I think it's time to relax.