these should not be growing in December here! but I’ll eat them.
only the oregano is normal but it ought to be under snow or ice. baby fennel in December.
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today I’m planning to build the crappy cheap metal oval raised bed things. it’s warm and sunny and dry out, a bad omen to be like this in January.
my bulbs are all sprouting.
snow doesn’t last beyond sunup. the greenhouse insulation is shredded and it has not mattered, it’s been above frost in there the entire time without the small heat running so far. maybe Feb/March will be icy? one can only hope for some form of winter
we have gotten several freezes but in the days it’s 40-50F mostly, seeds are sprouting, those die in the freezes, so a lot of things that normally reseed will not be able to in spring i think.
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We have had only a few frosty mornings and night feeezes at this point as well.
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well I’ve been sick and off work and not able to do much still. someone sent me a good number of the metal raised beds so my partner and i put them together and I’ve been having him move them around the garden like furniture to decide where they go, come spring. the dog supervised
I’m still setting up the greenhouse it’s real slow going this year. normally my hot peppers and onions and spring plants would be started about now.
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Good dog!
I have been thinking about getting some of these types of beds for a few years now. I am interested in how you will go about filling them.
Will it be mini Hügelkultur type?
Treated as a big compost bin?
The bottom filled with random ‘fill dirt’ you see for free everywhere and the top foot potting soil?
I’ve thought in the past that I would do a combination of Hügelkultur and compost layering. Where I would put in branches and such at the bottom, then the chunky tailings from sieving compost, then unfinished compost, and then top off with old potting soil mixed with more compost and soil!
Whew, a mouthful that!
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- native plants evolved to grow in the ecosystems of their native environments.
- cultivars adapted to the ecosystems of their landrace environments.
- In many cases, Hügelkultur is a poor match for either.
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Well, to be honest I know only the most very basic and common words in German. Plus, I got fancy copying the word with an umlaut, but normally you see it like this: hugelkultur.
I don’t know how you got the first two points you made, but to rebutt your third point is the only way I have heard of hugelkultur in this definition:
Hugelkultur (pronounced “hyoo-gul-kulture” German for “mound culture”) is a German gardening technique that involves building a raised bed or mound using decaying wood debris and other compostable organic materials. This permaculture practice creates a self-watering, self-composting garden bed that improves soil fertility, water retention, and aeration over time. The method mimics natural forest processes where fallen trees decompose and enrich the soil for decades.
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@Tiirsys
It is far from the original native environments of species cultivated today (including those from forests), and very far from the landrace environments of cultivated plants. Like many fads, it makes the gardener feel better than the plants. This is not to say the plants do poorly, rather, there are better approaches.
I see where you’re coming from. In my own interests, I feel like hugelkultur is a good way to use/clean up materials- whether they be windfall from a storm or a tree had to be cut, maybe there are just extra logs and stuff laying around that would eventually decompose but until then are in the way or an eyesore. Yup!
@Tiirsys
If you applying these scraps after planting, then it is no different than mulching.
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Just make sure the logs are extra, extra dead! 3+ years ago, I watched all the “fill your beds cheap!” Videos and was excited to try on a new 8x4 bed. To my surprise and horror, shoots started to come up from the logs and they took over the garden. They were logs that had been cut the year prior on a neighbors property. Granted, it must have been something extremely aggressive, and I absolutely should have figured out what it was first. I had to dig up the whole 8x4 bed to remove it all and get every last growth. I just fill with leaves, bulk soil and bulk compost now and it’s not that expensive. Also, you don’t get the big settling issues that happen when you put logs in. I throw food scraps in about halfway filled. I am adding another small (2x7) bed this spring and plan to mix in sand. For the years prior to the log nightmare, we used bagged soils, and wow that gets expensive. So… @resonanteye what’s your plan?
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well i have a WHOLE LOT of logs that have been sitting around a year or two. so those will go in the bottom to take up space
pine straw because again i have TONS.
then the current mounded areas, I’ll probably shovel that in to fill up to the top. i have some compost to add.
just whatever i can get my hands on for the bottom half ish, really. then native soil and my current garden soil to fill.
I’m going to compost in one of them, slow compost basically. just fill into it, cover it with mesh, wait till next year
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dug in and filled one of these raised bed things. bottom is full of mealy log chunks and cardboard torn up, then my mound bed topsoil shoveled over into it
I’ve got a handful more of these to put in. i like the hand built pallet beds better for looks, though. these remind me of industrial toilets or something
also did more seed in the greenhouse. no heat and it was 50F in there in the morning.
I’ve got another twenty trays i can fill, but no more heat mats or domes
plenty light though
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Awesome starts! I agree the metal beds are super ugly in winter, and I thought I would regret switching. Wooden beds are so pretty in their more natural form. But, the metal beds disappear during the growing season, and then it’s just nice that you don’t have warping wood.
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