Hugel bed continued

In the latest Paros-Naxos life issue, I wrote about an alternative way to use wooden cuttings, instead of burning them out in the open. It is called hugelbed and it is an excellent way to recycle wood while storing carbon in your soil, enriching it with much needed moist, fungi and other beneficial microorganisms. It is argued that the rotting wood absorbs a lot of nitrogen, but I figure that we cannot afford let any precious organic matter escape us. Then we will figure out how we will enrich the created soil with nutrients…

So, here is the one I made in the Tao’s garden. I chose to make a keyhole shaped raised bed, which is very comfortable to work on, being able to access it both from the outside and on the inside, plus it is a very nice shape. I started by covering it with cardboard, I put big logs on top, then smaller branches, then weeds freshly cut from the garden around, added a bit of animal manure, and then soil to cover all this. I planted rocket and garlic and I threw some seedballs with vegetable and legume seeds inside. Last but not least, I covered everything with some semi-composted mulch I had failed to compost thoroughly and I watered from top with a sprinkler, trying to imitate rain, the rain that we are missing so much. Come by to see how it looks like in person 😉

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