The soil here is horrible and my vegetables gardens have been crappy ever since I moved here. This year I decided to try a different style of garden. After much research, decided to try a hugelkultur garden bed.
Hugelkultur, pronounced Hoo-gul-culture, means hill culture or hill mound.
The bottom is big old rotten logs. The logs rot and add nutrients into the soil. They also help to aerate the soil and hold water, so the garden requires less watering. In addition, the heat from the rotting logs helps to keep the soil warmer and extends the growing season.
Next, old leaves and other lawn debris is added. this helps to fill in any gaps in the logs. The leaves and lawn debris helps to add nutrients in the soil. After that, I added a layer of horse and cow poop. Babysitting the cows and horses paid off! LOL I got a ton of manure.
After the cow and horse manure, I added a layer of old chicken coop shavings and poop. Took the time, to push everything down to ensure there was no gaps underneath. If there are gaps, rats and other rodents can get in and makes burrows! Don't want that happening!
After the chicken poop and shavings, we added soil on top. Lots and lots of soil on top! We pushed down the soil to ensure there was no gaps and then we added more soil. Once the soil was added, we added another layer of old chicken poop compost.
And its done!\
We found lots of free fencing over at the gravel pit, just carried it home! The fencing is a bit mismatch, but we don't care. It keeps the greedy geese and ducks out, and that's what matters! They destroy gardens!
Now just gotta wait a couple of weeks to plant my seedlings. here in Nova Scotia, we get frost in June so gotta be careful
Later in the summer, I'll let you know how the garden worked out! Fingers crossed!
Hugs and love!
