Well I needed a way to use up the old logs and trimmings from my fruit trees. I thought a hugelkultur would be great to plant my nut and fruit trees around and it has paid off. First I cleared an area in the food garden then dug a ditch you might call it. I placed the logs in first and threw a heap of Dynamic Lifter into the whole. next I layered the thickest of the tree cuttings over the logs and over those the twiggy leafy cuttings. Over this mound I threw the soil back over the mound. Now around this hugelkultur I planted a almond tree, mandarin, lime, column apple and there was already a nectarine tree growing near it. After about a year my trees improved greatly but the top was always too dry to grow anything useful on it so I got creative. On the top I placed a special raised core bed, into the raised bed I laid a lot of tree cuttings down the centre of the bed. This is meant to feed and hold in the moisture for the plants that will be growing in there. Then I added good soil and compost into the core bed and I must say it did rather well. My veggie garden is only a tiny one so the space needs to be used well. There are 2 more raised core beds dotted in my garden and all of them did very well. It's winter here now and the beds will get a clean up ready for spring. Hope you have enjoyed my ideas and I will show the update soon, thank you for reading my story.
THE TREE CUTTINGS I USED.
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I THREW DYNAMIC LIFTER OVER THE LOGS TO HELP THEM ROT.
THE HOLE NEED NOT BE A DEEP ONE.
NORMALLY YOU'D PLANT INTO THE TOP OF A HUGELKULTUR BUT I GOT CREATIVE AND PLACED A RAISED BED OVER THE HUGELKULTUR. IT WAS ALWAYS TOO DRY TO PLANT INTO AND IT'S PURPOSE WAS TO CATER TO THE TREES SURROUNDING IT. AS YOU CAN SEE THERE'S A MOUND OF TREE CUTTINGS IN THE CENTRE OF THE RAISED BED AND IT ONLY NEEDS TO BE FILLED WITH A MIXTURE OF GOOD SOIL AND COMPOST.
THE CUTTINGS WILL OF COURSE ROT DOWN SO AS TIME GOES ON THEY NEED TO BE REFILLED BEFORE BEING PLANTING INTO.
3RD RAISED CORE BED BUT STILL IMPORTANT IN MY TINY FOOD GARDEN.