Small hugelkultur project

Adding the wood to a trench

Grass clippings added.

Compost and soil from the trench added and mixed.

Planted with herbs.

I wanted easily accessed herbs, mostly culinary in our front yard.  At the lower right side of the photos is a path of round pavers that leads to the back yard.  At the left is the shade of the blue spruce that dominates the front yard and beyond it is the street.  Annie did most of the labor, and I supervised using knowledge from reading and sheer willingness to make decisions.

First we dug a trench and piled the soil up on the path.  Then we added the wood.  Twigs and small branches were put out on the street for a trash pickup by a neighbor.  I wish we had had more, but whatever.

Second we added grass clippings.  I asked the guy who mows the neighbors' lawn to leave them in the side yard for me.

Then we put the dirt back in the trench and added "compost" from our lazy compost pile.  It isn't really completely well rotted, so we mixed it in to finish.

Finally, we planted herbs.

It seems like there was some grass seed in the mix, probably from the grass clippings, so some weeding will be necessary.


Other items:

We also moved a bench from the nether regions.  It is a really pleasant place to sit, though I'd like to put some pavers under the legs to level it and prevent the legs from sinking in.  It also is part of my strategy to make the yard look like it was planned as opposed to just growing up in weeds.  All of the other front yards on the court, indeed in the neighborhood, are deserts of grass, so we need to do some public relations of a sort.

We planted sunflowers and Jerusalem artichokes along the "Nick strip", between our driveway and the edge of our property.  I also planted some horseradish from the grocery store there.  It had tiny plants trying to grow on it.  I debated about planting it in the ground as opposed to a pot.  I know it can be invasive, but it should be contained by the concrete driveway.  It is a dynamic accumulator and growing it in a pot seems to me to be wasting that function.

I have scattered New Zealand white clover seed around along the edges of the swales and places where we have grass or bare ground, especially in the back where the dogs have trampled down almost everything.  I sowed in among the glass gem corn, too.  I understand that while it spreads aggressively, it is not difficult to pull up, which we will do as needed, laying it on the ground in place as a green mulch.