My garden struggling in the heat

I know I am not alone in walking around my garden and seeing all the sun-baked plants, but it sure is disappointing. Here in the Appalachian mountains we have been running on average as much as 15ºF hotter than normal for most of June and into July. 

Shallot harvest 2012

A few things have done rather well, like garlic, shallots and onions, but those were all planted months ago. 

Lemon Squash

Summer squash have grown like gangbusters, of course. This year I planted Costata Romanesco zucchini, and lemon squash (it's "lemon" only in size and shape). I'm pleased at how insect resistant they have been. So far I have baked and frozen more than half a dozen squash quiche for winter meals (plus my Sis and I have eaten a couple more of them), and frozen some plain shredded zucchini in case I decide to make zucchini bread for the Christmas holidays. (I've gained a lot of weight and really don't need the temptation!)

The winter squash (Red Kuri and Spaghetti squash) planted on my new hugelkulture berm have finally taken off on one end, but the other end planted with just Red Kuri is languishing. The photo of the better end above was taken 2 weeks ago; the vines nearly cover the berm now. It is taking daily deep watering to keep the hugel berm plants growing since the sod/dirt layer is rather thin, but in a year or two the logs will have rotted enough to act as a sponge, and the smaller twigs/limbs will have broken down a lot. I do intend to cover the entire berm with newspapers and a heavy layer of wood chips before winter, so that should help next year.

Rabbits have repeatedly nibbled both kinds of pole beans I planted right to the ground (Kentucky Wonder and Cherokee Trail of Tears) but I finally have a few that I temporarily caged after re-planting so I may still get a few beans. I did stick in a few fava beans here and there, more for the soil than to eat.

The Finocchio (or Florence) fennel that is said to hate hot weather is actually producing a few bulbs although I lost most of my seedlings in the early heat wave.

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New Hugelkultur Bed

I'm starting a new food forest garden area that will hold a few fruit trees, and the old barn is just above that area. Rain pours off the barn roof and flows down the slight slope right to the creek, so I decided to build a hugelkultur bed right on top of the buried electric and telephone lines. That not only accomplishes a bed that holds water, but it also covers the lines to keep me from digging a planting hole too close to the lines.

I plan to plant winter squash vines on it this year, and they can ramble on both sides of the hugelkultur bed. It's a good technique to build a mini-water-retention landscape.

This will be the new planting area

"Call before you Dig" is the Law in Virginia, and it's free, so I had "MissUtility" come out and mark the lines. You can barely see the flags in the photo above if you enlarge it.

Then I hauled in some logs that were beginning to deteriorate, and placed them over the lines. I would have liked to extend the row about another 6 feet, but I can add on later when I find more logs.

Next I added small branches from trimming some bushes in the yard. Having more intermediate sized stuff would have been best, but I used what I had.

The next layer has more greens, and I also added grass clippings (not shown).

Next, I had someone with a Bobcat come and scrape off the sod in the new area, and dump it on the hugelkulture log piles. Some of the grass still needs to be turned grass-side down, and it's quite lumpy so I also need to smooth it out a bit.

My plans are to add a thick layer of wood chips to the area that will be planted down the slope from the hugelkulture bed. The black pile beyond my truck is the mostly composted material from the sheet mulching last fall over the drain field, that I didn't know was a drain field when I did it. The pH is highly alkaline, so it will have to sit for a while before I can use it. It will get a few small applications of elemental sulfur to help bring down the pH.

I still have a lot of work on the hugelcultur bed, turning the grass clumps and evening it out. Then it will get a layer of topsoil and planted with winter squash this year.

More photos coming when I het it planted, so stay tuned!

Half-Hugel or Hugel-Edge (Hugelkultur)

Just Beginning to build a Hugelkultur "edge"

Hugelkultur beds are an amazingly simple concept, used across the pond for ages but fairly new in the US. The beds are made by piling partially-rotted trees, limbs, trunks, leaves and other garden woody waste thickly, and covering it with mulch and soil. The name comes from the German hügelkultur, which translates as "hill culture". 

The layers break down slowly, creating rich humus over several years. As the years pass, the deep soil of the raised bed becomes incredibly rich and loaded with soil life. As the wood shrinks, it makes more tiny air pockets - so your hugelkultur bed becomes self tilling. The first few years, the composting process will slightly warm the soil, giving a slightly longer growing season in temperate and cold climates. (Source)

There are many designs and methods and they all work; the actual design is usually based on the particular needs in the garden. Some are just a foot or so deep and 2-3 feet wide, while some are several feet deep and wide. Some folks dig a pit in the ground, add the waste woody material, and use the removed soil to cover the pile. Some just start directly on the ground, and then cover with mulch and soil. I've even seen photos of hugelkultur beds using enormous tree trunks piled 6 feet high and 40 feet long. Here's a link to a photo illustration of the general concept.

What the rotting wood does is sequester moisture like a sponge in the soil, negating most if not all the need to water plants in a hugelkultur bed. As the woody waste decomposes, the humus created feeds soil life, which in turn feed the plants that feed us.

While my new planting area is much too large for me to physically tackle as one enormous hugelkultur bed, I decided there are enough benefits to make what I'm calling a "half hugel" or a "hugel edge". The area I am sheet mulching is on a gentle slope down to the creek, and I am using hugelkulture concepts to build up the lower edge which runs parallel to the creek and perpendicular to the slope.

I'm not particularly attempting to level out the slope, although some of that will happen just by soil movement via gravity down the slope, esp. when it rains. Rather, I'm aiming for a water reservoir effect. The upper edge of this area will have a shallow swale dug, which will slow down runoff from above it, and retain moisture that will be released slowly into the garden area below it.

I will continue to post on this 'half hugel' as I get more put in place. In the meantime, here's a link to building a hugelkultur bed of your own, and here's another link showing how they age, with photos of real beds being built at the bottom of the page.