Anybody used hugelkulture? share thoughts, please

[freemotion]

I was suddenly locked out of Permies at one point, too. And I agree that many of the ideas are theoretical and have not been tried. Or have not been tried in comparison with more realistic ways of doing things. I followed the owner some years ago and found him to be a big talk no action type, unable to answer any questions on anything he posted. He mostly posted other people's ideas and at one time use this forum to direct people to his site. I think I was locked out and actually my username was even changed after I responded to an email newsletter that was so full of f-bombs as to be unreadable. I'm guessing that was it, I didn't go to the site very often and when I went back one day I couldn't get in and my username was changed. The whole thing was just weird.

Actually, I'm having a little Deja Vu moment.

 

[Joel_BC]

No, that's not who I'm talking about. I was referring to the list owner at least at the time.

Yeah, I was clear on that.

It's just that Sepp is who the permaculturists who make up the membership most often praise, even more than the Austrailians who published the early permie books (Mollison, Holmgren & those people).

 

[Joel_BC]

I find many of the "permie" ideas regarding gardening and livestock production are impractical, at best, and downright silly, at worst. The chicken house brush pile is an example of incredibly silly thinking and the one perched on hay bales, was needlessly cumbersome and labor intensive for the expected outcome.

Mounding up wood and soil into a mound in order to plant a few shrubs or perennial type food stuff seems, to me, to be a huge amount of work for too little pay off. One could just layer in compost materials over time and get the same sustainability, moisture retention, and good yields, so I'm not a huge fan of the whole hugel type gardening unless one has a problem area in the yard~big hole filled with brush/wood/rocks and has a pile of said materials there and want to use the space anyway, though I am on board for permaculture.

Thinking about the permaculture-homestead approach in general...

The key idea is to reduce the need for off-farm inputs — inputs like amendments for soil fertility and feed for livestock. From what I've seen, it's an approach that requires quite a great deal of investment (time, energy, money for tree & shrub stock) at the start. In the longer run, so long as large land-use design mistakes haven't been made initially, it can provide a lot in the way of food, fiber, shade, etc.

I've seen good energetic people really struggle with that permaculture-homestead start-up phase. But the trees and shrubs that started out teeny get big. So later, another challenge sometimes presents itself in this way: the tree and shrub emphasis results in a great abundance of fruit (and maybe nuts), but possibly too little to financially justify hiring help to harvest it. This can very easily mean edibles go to waste.

I won't knock permaculture overall. But I do think some people are blindly jumping onto (or trying to jump onto) that bandwagon, without knowledge of the sorts of things I've mentioned. Just a few thoughts.

 

[freemotion]

Thinking about the permaculture-homestead approach in general...

The key idea is to reduce the need for off-farm inputs — inputs like amendments for soil fertility and feed for livestock. From what I've seen, it's an approach that requires quite a great deal of investment (time, energy, money for tree & shrub stock) at the start. In the longer run, so long as large land-use design mistakes haven't been made initially, it can provide a lot in the way of food, fiber, shade, etc.

I've seen good energetic people really struggle with that permaculture-homestead start-up phase. But the trees and shrubs that started out teeny get big. So later, another challenge sometimes presents itself in this way: the tree and shrub emphasis results in a great abundance of fruit (and maybe nuts), but possibly too little to financially justify hiring help to harvest it. This can very easily mean edibles go to waste.

I won't knock permaculture overall. But I do think some people are blindly jumping onto (or trying to jump onto) that bandwagon, without knowledge of the sorts of things I've mentioned. Just a few thoughts.

Don't forget that any abundance of any food can be turned into bacon.

 

[Joel_BC]

Don't forget that any abundance of any food can be turned into bacon.

Right you are... it's just that, from what I've noticed, keeping a couple pigs has not always been in the initial plans of the people designing their permaculture place.

 

[Beekissed]

I think livestock can only enhance that type of food system, be it small stock or larger. They can turn waste into something valuable quicker than a compost pile can do it and you get the added benefit of the protein supply of their byproducts.

 

[NH Homesteader]

My husband and I have been talking about trying this but haven't yet. So I'm just going to pull up a chair and with you

 

[tortoise]

I tried to build one by hand. I quickly realized why all the articles and videos were using machinery. I'm reduced to a sort of lasagna or BTE garden, but I'm using layers of sticks in one lasagna/BTE/flat hugel garden area.

 

[sumi]

I believe @baymule has a hugelculture bed or two. Hopefully she can chime in and and tell us about it.

 

[sumi]

@freemotion If production is that good, this can be a great way for gardeners with limited space (for example city and town dwellers) to get good productive gardens in limited space?

Can you share some pics of your project please?