Raised beds - Hill beds

[Iris_Germany]

As I am the proud builder of two hillbeds this year (one small, one big) I wanted to create a new thread about this topic.

Both beds inhabit only garlic cloves at the moment who haven't sprouded since I planted them (beginning of October). I love garlic and it's necessary to keep the mices away who want to start big families in my cosy hillbeds. As they find garlic disgusting, I did not have problems with them since I planted garlic allover. In my pallett beds too. They come into the raised beds, even if I put close-meshed wire on the bottom. They find a way on the side to slip in. The garlic is the best anti-mice weapon ever, I experienced.

Do you build these special beds too?
If yes, I would like to hear your experiences and maybe see pictures too. Next time I go to my patch, I take some and put them in here.

There is a kind of trend in Germany since some years where hillbeds became fancy. Last year I had a rather little one where I planted 1 tomato and several peppers on top, garlic allover and potatoes on the side. The crop was very good but I couldn't find the new potatoes right away. They grew deep into the bed. When I finally found them, the hill was destroyed, of course, but I wanted to build a new one anyway and take the soil from this one to build a much bigger one.

Thanks for sharing your hillbed stories with me!

PS: I found this link in English and found it quite good. There are pros and cons of building a hügelbed, which these guys here explain very thouroughly.

https://www.ecofarmingdaily.com/eco-...tur-gardening/

This is an extract from the link:


Hügelkultur Pros

• The foundation of a hügelkultur bed is built using free and recycled resources that often otherwise end up in landfills or burn piles.
• As wood breaks down, worms, fungi, beneficial bacteria and microorganisms work to create and release nutrients to plant roots for up to 20 years, depending on the type and density of wood.
• Hügelkultur naturally sequesters carbon in the soil.
• Decomposing wood generates heat, which is helpful for season extension.
• Hügel beds warm up faster in the spring, allowing for earlier planting.
• Traditional hügel beds have more overall planting space because of their three-dimensional nature and require less space in the garden because fewer garden paths are needed.
• Tall hügel beds are easily tended while standing, making them a good solution for those with limited mobility.
• Rotting wood acts like a sponge, absorbing and releasing moisture to plant roots as needed for many years. Beds may need watering in extreme droughts, but water is retained longer—a good solution for areas with periodic or chronic drought.
• Hügels are naturally aerated and don’t need tilling or turning.
• If covered with straw or wood chip mulch, weeds are easily kept in check.

Hügelkultur Cons
Hügelkultur beds can be labor-intensive to build, depending on their size and scope. This is remedied by building smaller beds or by constructing classic raised beds using the hügelkultur principle of starting with a woody base.

• The breakdown of the raw, woody base can rob nitrogen for the first year or two. Avoid this problem by adding a heavy layer of manure to the wood base during construction, avoiding growing nitrogen-hungry plants for the first two years, side-dressing plants with compost, or supplementing with organic nitrogen-rich fertilizer.
• Very steep-sided hügel beds might allow mulch and unmulched soils to slide or slump. Problems related to height will naturally resolve themselves as the woody base breaks down and the hügel shrinks.
• Tall plants growing on steep-sided beds may fall over or be difficult to tend. Grow shorter, sprawling plants until the hügel shrinks a little.
• Because of the exposure, plants grown on tall hügel beds may be more susceptible to wind and frost damage.

[Snadger]

By Hillbeds I presume you mean un-sided raised beds? of which I am an advocate! I have used raised bed garrdening for many years but got sick of replacing rotten wood or finding all manner of slugs/snails in the area around the edges.

I now garden with cardboard and compost if I have it on very narrow beds. Mine are 2 foot wide with 14 inch paths. This way I can 'straddle' the beds and I find them very easy to work on. Like you my spuds came out and the bed was planted up with garlic with a single row of shallots down the centre.
Over the years I have tried all manner of ways to garden from traditional to Hugelkulture methods but my straddle beds are a keeper and are here to stay.

[quanglewangle]

Repost from another topic, May clairfy...

Language note: In US English the word hill is used for the long raised soil row drawn up over potatoes. The equivalent in British English is ridge (at least it is when speaking of potatoes, not for hills in general)

[MelanieSW]

I've got one hügelkultur bed, which wasn't as productive as I'd hoped the first year - I think I didn't add enough green stuff or manure to make up for the wood. But I'm having hopes that the second year will be good. The first year it was used for pumpkins and courgettes.

[Iris_Germany]

Repost from another topic, May clairfy...

Language note: In US English the word hill is used for the long raised soil row drawn up over potatoes. The equivalent in British English is ridge (at least it is when speaking of potatoes, not for hills in general)

Yes! That's good! Thank you. I know the word "ridge" from Bernard Cornwall's Sharpe books. They often talk about ridges and storm them when the enemy soldiers hide behind.

A hill is then more a kind of mound in English? The problem is, that "Hügel" is the translation for hill in German which I found in the dictionairy. This is why I chose it. Unfortunately, often the words found do not get close to what one want to express.

So, how do we call now these formations of which I am talking ... Originally, they came from China. I am not for the word "Hügelculture" because the Germans didn't invent it. It's a fashion here among rather young people and gardeners who always look for new ways. I am not young but I find them convenient for my needs. I had a lot of old fruit trees who did not yield fruits anymore. I cut them all and put everything in pallett beds and ridge-beds. This was 5 years ago. Since then, all the wood transformed to earth, so I did not have to lease a pick-up car and drive the trees to some composting-firm.

[Iris_Germany]

I've got one hügelkultur bed, which wasn't as productive as I'd hoped the first year - I think I didn't add enough green stuff or manure to make up for the wood. But I'm having hopes that the second year will be good. The first year it was used for pumpkins and courgettes.

So, you call it "Hügel-Kultur"-bed in English? That's interesting. The Germans did not invent the Hügelkultur but stole it form the old chinese gardeners and revived it.

My first Hügelbed was no success neither. Within 3 months it sank half a metre and everything I had planted was a huge mess.

[Iris_Germany]

By Hillbeds I presume you mean un-sided raised beds? of which I am an advocate! I have used raised bed garrdening for many years but got sick of replacing rotten wood or finding all manner of slugs/snails in the area around the edges.

I now garden with cardboard and compost if I have it on very narrow beds. Mine are 2 foot wide with 14 inch paths. This way I can 'straddle' the beds and I find them very easy to work on. Like you my spuds came out and the bed was planted up with garlic with a single row of shallots down the centre.
Over the years I have tried all manner of ways to garden from traditional to Hugelkulture methods but my straddle beds are a keeper and are here to stay.

Hi,
That's great to hear! You are an enthusiastic builder of such formations too! If one has a lot of green stuff and branches, it is an easy way to get a neat garden again and to use the hills for planting all kinds of things.

(And yes, I mean the beds without palletts or planks. And it is like a long triangle ).

And I have the same problem like you! My EU-palletts are old now and half rotten. I want to have new ones but they are so expensive right now! The price of wood has sky-rocketed here, so that the price of one new EU-pallett has risen to 28 Euros (approx. 24 GBP). To replace my 3 pallett-raised-beds, thus 12 palletts, you can imaginge how much I would have to pay. Gardening deluxe, so to say

Yes, and the awful snails. Boards are their favourite home where they all go at night. And when you lift them in the morning or look at the inside of a raised bed where the planks are, there they sit in hundreds. Awful.

The cardboard method, I heard of too. Maybe I try this next year in automn, when my hills have rotten down and I can use this soil to cover the cardboard. You do not even have to dig under the cardboar, I heard. I want to try it with potatoes. The straddle beds are a good idea, you can easily reach them and work on them.

Well, I think, I have got some new ideas from you for next year. Thank you very much! Everything, which make the hard work easier, I appreciate.

[Iris_Germany]

Hi,
That's great to hear! You are an enthusiastic builder of such formations too! If one has a lot of green stuff and branches, it is an easy way to get a neat garden again and to use the hills for planting all kinds of things.

(And yes, I mean the beds without palletts or planks. And it is like a long triangle ).

And I have the same problem like you! My EU-palletts are old now and half rotten. I want to have new ones but they are so expensive right now! The price of wood has sky-rocketed here, so that the price of one new EU-pallett has risen to 28 Euros (approx. 24 GBP). To replace my 3 pallett-raised-beds, thus 12 palletts, you can imaginge how much I would have to pay. Gardening deluxe, so to say

Yes, and the awful snails. Boards are their favourite home where they all go at night. And when you lift them in the morning or look at the inside of a raised bed where the planks are, there they sit in hundreds. Awful.

The cardboard method, I heard of too. Maybe I try this next year in automn, when my hills have rotten down and I can use this soil to cover the cardboard. You do not even have to dig under the cardboar, I heard. I want to try it with potatoes. The straddle beds are a good idea, you can easily reach them and work on them.

Well, I think, I have got some new ideas from you for next year. Thank you very much! Everything, which make the hard work easier, I appreciate.

Eh, in automn makes no sense for planting potatoes. Maybe I tear down next spring one of the half rotten pallett-beds and take the compost from in there to make cardboard beds. Yes, that seems perfect! The hills are not ready then. I have only built them 2 months ago.

[Iris_Germany]

By Hillbeds I presume you mean un-sided raised beds? of which I am an advocate! I have used raised bed garrdening for many years but got sick of replacing rotten wood or finding all manner of slugs/snails in the area around the edges.

I now garden with cardboard and compost if I have it on very narrow beds. Mine are 2 foot wide with 14 inch paths. This way I can 'straddle' the beds and I find them very easy to work on. Like you my spuds came out and the bed was planted up with garlic with a single row of shallots down the centre.
Over the years I have tried all manner of ways to garden from traditional to Hugelkulture methods but my straddle beds are a keeper and are here to stay.

These are two of my pallett-beds btw.
3 years ago approx.
In the meantime, they further rotted down, some planks have broken and it doesn't look so good anymore.
I repared them a bit but as I am no handyman, it's rather pathetic what I did.

I have to replace them someday. You know, they give my garden a nice structure. And my neighbors can't see what mess I make behind them, hahahaha. Near the fence and the gate: How pretty!
Behind the beds: Chaos ..

[Bren In Pots]

Here's a photo of my beds from earlier in the season.

[rary]

Hello Iris, I have a thread on this part of it he forum "will it work" which I hope explains what I am trying, which is my own adaption of a hugelkulture bed, I had to get a tree cut down due to ash die back and rather than just let it rot away or burn it I cut it up and have placed it into a raised bed with three sides made with concrete slabs and the other made with timber, when the tree was in place I then covered it with various types of green material, just pulled from the garden and spread over and pushed into any gaps, the soil will no doubt settle down as this rots, it is as I said my own adaption to your type of gardening beds, the bed measures 16ft. long 6ft. wide and 2ft. deep, I am hoping that the timber will last a good number of years, it is lined in the inside with heavy polythene to help prevent the wooden side rotting plus if I do need to replace the wood the polythene will help keep the soil in place, I will monitor how the timber deteriorates, after all I don't want to be doing heavy work once I get old


https://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gr...k-it-will-work

[Plot70]

My soil type is brick making clay.
My hill beds are more like clay block built raised beds with vertical sides.
Last year I built one filled with couch grass roots and some tap root weeds.
I capped it with horse manure with wood chip bedding leaving a small hole in the top.
I added a big tank full of undiluted urine and plugged the hole to keep the ammonia in to pickle the weed roots.
The whole lot was later capped with topsoil and planted with squashes.
A good crop was had.
This year the top layers were used on another bed and another crop of squashes was had from the lower layer.
This year I built an even bigger one with tree branches in an extra lower layer and a further upper layer of woof chip and manure and more urine as as some weed shoots came through.
The biggest squash on this second bed was 23.6Kg.
I have added a further photo after bringing the text over from the spoiled thread showing the beginning of planting this years larger bed.

[Snadger]

My 'straddle' beda are at the rear on the left and on the diagonal. The front beds still have wood around them but once this rots they too will become straddle beds.

[Iris_Germany]

Hello Iris, I have a thread on this part of it he forum "will it work" which I hope explains what I am trying, which is my own adaption of a hugelkulture bed, I had to get a tree cut down due to ash die back and rather than just let it rot away or burn it I cut it up and have placed it into a raised bed with three sides made with concrete slabs and the other made with timber, when the tree was in place I then covered it with various types of green material, just pulled from the garden and spread over and pushed into any gaps, the soil will no doubt settle down as this rots, it is as I said my own adaption to your type of gardening beds, the bed measures 16ft. long 6ft. wide and 2ft. deep, I am hoping that the timber will last a good number of years, it is lined in the inside with heavy polythene to help prevent the wooden side rotting plus if I do need to replace the wood the polythene will help keep the soil in place, I will monitor how the timber deteriorates, after all I don't want to be doing heavy work once I get old


https://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gr...k-it-will-work

Ah, now I know better what you try to do. You use the timber not on the bottom of your bed to rot but you build a raised bed with them. It's like my pallett beds but made of solid timber who does not rot so quick like my EU-palletts. Have I gotten that right?
Inside my palletts I have thick black polythene too.

Is there chipped wood or branches on the bottom of your timber bed too? On top of these we take meadow here, 1 spade deep, and put it the other way around on top of the wood. Then cut grass and everything else of any green material. With the seagrass you mention, I worry a bit that there is salt in it. If yes, this maybe contraproductive.

But as I do not know which seagrass you especially ment, maybe grass from a sea and not from the salty ocean, it's certainly not bad. I can imagine that seagrass rots not so quickly and could take the place in the raised bed of thin branches. Which is good on the bottom of the bed.

[Iris_Germany]

My 'straddle' beda are at the rear on the left and on the diagonal. The front beds still have wood around them but once this rots they too will become straddle beds.

I have made my automn oignon beds narrow too. At first it was only one bed, but then I saw that I could not reach very well the other side, so I made a path within. And I like it very much like this.

I see, I have to make a lot of pictures when I go next time to my garden for showing :-)) It's too cold (for me) to do some work now, the fingers do not want to function and get stiff and unwilling, so I will do nothing anymore in my garden until next spring.