Building a Hugelkultur Mound for Growing Food and Improving Soil

I have threatened this for a long time both to you guys and to myself. I have always had the materials on hand to do this and that is of course a deciding factor. It’s so simple and it’s an action that you can take to better your soil and get rid of all kinds of materials that take longer to compost.

I chose to chicken bedding and poop in my creation, also. I had these bins of chicken bedding that have been left out in the rain for weeks. it was on its way to breaking down and I thought it would be a great way to put this stuff to use outside of the simple compost pile.

Here are the basic layers of a Hügelkultur mound:

1. Rotting stumps and split wood and branches
2. Hot matter like compost or even green material (here I used the chicken manure and bedding)
3. Partially Composted Materials
4. Topsoil
5. Straw

After you add the topsoil and before you add the straw you want to soak the bed down really well. Once your bed is all layered up you can give it a day to settle and then you can plant in it.