Hugel bed part 1

Gardening has always been something we always wanted to do and be good at.  We've had spurts of motivation over the years to start a garden, run into trouble and usually give up for the season.  Without a doubt, growing at least some of our own food is becoming a requirement for us so we can eat healthier and spend less money on food.  We are really recommitting to learning organic gardening and permeculture to make this work. 

Last year we made 4 beds.  We used the old 4 ft. x 4 ft. raised beds, layering top soil, compost and mulch.  This last spring we transplanted some vegetable plants from a local hardware store.  We had one bed with all tomatoes of different varieties, a bed with all peppers of different varieties and one bed actually didn't have anything in it.  It was a weak and lazy attempt if I am going to be honest.  We didn't water or weed.  The tomatoes grew like crazy in the humidity but were swarmed with bugs to pint where you couldn't even see the tomato beneath the bugs.  The peppers were the only thing we got and we got pounds and pounds from July to October, We had so many that we tried to freeze and keep what we didn't eat or give away to the neighbors.

So, in the spirit of trying again and learning from our laziness and mistakes, we are going to try again.  We are keeping the 4 beds as they are now about a year old.  We will put a layer of compost and much and try again.

We are also making a new bed next to the other 4 beds which is roughly 10 ft. x 4 ft.  After watching some videos on hugelkultur, we decided  to use some our endless supply of dead wood lying around and give this method a try.  Since we know we are lazy, we are hoping that this method will greatly reduce the need for watering.  I spent the last couple of days pulling dead branches and logs around and collecting them in the location where we wanted to put it.  I was going to dig a trench to place the logs in, but since the location is in a small valley on our lot, you can see that just after a few hours of rain, there are deep puddles of standing water. 

Consequently, we put the logs above the ground and will pile manure, top soil and compost on the log pile.  The bed should be about 3 to 4 ft. at its peak.  Lets face it, no digging had something to do with my decision as well.  As we piled up the wood, we pictured this uncontained messy pile that would be too wide for us to get to without having to climb it, so we laid out a boundary of concrete blocks we had sitting around that had no use. 

In this picture, we just finished the logs.  Our next task is to find some free manure and cheap top soil.  Once we start piling that, we will add another level of blocks.     

Reducing Dependency

We live in central North Carolina, we moved here about a year ago and built a home on a piece of property we bought.  My wife and I have been married 10 years and have 2 young children.  We have been kicked around plenty in our employment and financial lives and want to take a little more responsibility for our health, education and ability to live less dependently on a system that seems to continually take from us.  We have been feeling this way for a few years now which is one of the things that led us out here.  Its time for us to take it up a notch and start learning some skills, making ourselves more prepared and begin to take more responsibility for our own lives.  Our intention is to document that journey since we are learning from scratch.