Hugelkultur. What is this word? Simple. Buried wood – namely. I buried wood first and then a bunch of other stuff: On garbage day, I ran around collecting random organic material: leaves, trimmings (grass, trees, bushes, fronds, etc..).
Then I went to the beach and collected mounds of seaweed. I brought over my kitchen compost and began layering all this material. I made a donut and used dirt from the center in between layers. Last I topped it off with some more dirt and peat moss. Looks like a donut.
I’m gardening in the layered mound and use the middle as a compost pit for dog doodie and random garden/yard trimmings.
What have been growing?
On the beds
- Banana plants, short and tall (cavendish)
- Moringa
- Papaya (volunteered)
- Sugercane
- Sweet Potato
- Oxilis
- Crepis Japonica
- Cranberry Hibiscus
- Milkweed
- Watermelon
- Sugar cane
- Lemon grass
- Tomatos on vine (unknown variety)
- Florida Everglades tomatoes
- Onions
In the middle
Carolina willow for medicine (looking for white). I’ve had good luck alleviating headaches with willow east of I-75. However, I haven’t been able to reproduce results locally. It’s a young tree, which might be the problem. Time will tell.
More updates later.