Year 2 in the Hugelkultur Kitchen Gardens

Have you ever wondered what the second year looks like in the hugelkultur garden? Here are my discoveries and lesson I learned from year 2 with my hugelkultur garden beds!

A Second Year in the Hugelkultur Garden Beds

Yes, I heard you asking. It seems my hugelkulturs have caught the interest of more than a few readers! And I’m finally ready to share all about year 2 in the hugelkulturs (you can catch year 1 here).

Discovery 1: My Hugelkulturs Needed More Soil

When the snow finally melted early in the spring of my second planting year, I noticed that the soil on my hugelkulturs had settled quite a bit. That’s to be expected when you have logs, branches, crack and crevices underneath all that dirt!

It was a good thing, and I was happy to see it. Settled soil just meant my hugelkulturs were ripening, like a round of aging farm cheese!

So after pulling back the old, mostly decomposed straw mulch, my man and I added another 4-6 inches of good soil to every garden bed. And I painstakingly used a rake to spread it out.

Discovery 2: Higher Walls Were Necessary in Some Beds

During my first year of gardening in hugelkulturs, I found that the soil was a bit shallow around the perimeter of my garden beds. And in some cases, the soil would slip off the log frames and plants were more prone to dry out.

In hindsight, I wish I would have lined the perimeter with another layer of small logs after putting down the hot matter (the 2nd layer from the bottom).

But I didn’t and so, it actually took me into the spring of my 3rd year before I added small, 3-4 inch diameter logs to raise walls on some of the beds.

These extra inches helped hold soil in, gave me deeper earth around the perimeter and plants were easier to keep moist.

Discovery 3: It’s Best to Mulch Hugelkultur Garden Beds in the Fall

Hugelkulturs need to be mulched every year. And in my particular climate where we stay below freezing most of the winter, the best time to mulch is in the fall.

With the soil well protected and a layer of snow to cover the beds, my straw mulch was still in excellent condition when spring rolled around! All I had to do was go out and plant.

By the time we were nearing the end of the gardening season, lots of the mulch had decomposed. But that was just fine by me! At that time the plants are large enough that they snuff out the weeds anyway.

Properly putting my hugelkulturs to bed in the fall made spring planting much easier and whole lot more fun!

---

---

Discovery 4: A Wet Spring+Hugelkulturs=Happy Slugs

My second year of gardening in the hugelkulturs, we had an incredibly wet spring! Thundershower after thundershower descended on our little valley and there was one point when I didn’t know if my hugelkultur plants were going to make it.

Not only was it wet, cold and dreary, but the slugs were out in full force.

It didn’t matter if I was planting in the hugelkulturs or out in my primary vegetable garden. Beans were attacked. My hollyhocks didn’t have leaves; just a webbed outlines revealing where the greenery used to be. The echinacea was decimated. I had to replant cucumbers not once, but three times. It seemed anything I directly sowed in the soil was eaten away as soon as it sprouted.

Battle the slugs, I did! And many a time, I wished we had ducks. There’s nothing ducks like better than a meal of slugs!

But at the time, I didn’t have ducks.

So in the hugelkulturs, I stopped watering seedlings with a sprinkler and started using a watering can in attempt to limit the moisture in my beds. I also learned that pulling back the straw mulch and leaving the soil exposed significantly help deal with the slug issue as well.

Next time we have a wet spring, I’ll know what to do. And thank goodness we finally do have ducks as a backup!

Discovery 5: Most Vegetables Grow Well in Hugelkulturs

If there’s one thing I’ve learned with hugelkultur gardening, it’s this: success lies in the quality of your growing soil.

When I first started, I thought you couldn’t grow things like lettuce, spinach and other cool-weather crops in the hugelkultur. In my second year, I experimented and soon discovered that anything goes…or grows, rather.

Herbs. Flowers. Leafy greens. Vegetables. Tomatoes.

The only thing that didn’t take to these beds were some of the brassicas: cabbage, kale, broccoli and also, cauliflower.

I still haven’t figured that one out. I suspect it had something to do with the soil, seeing as I haven’t been able to grow any of these very well in my hugelkulturs! I suspect my soil is quite acidic.

My Goal For These Hugekultur Garden Beds

I’ve done my fair share of experimenting with herbs and vegetables in the hugelkulturs. And now, I’m ready to dig in and start creating a real kitchen garden that is filled with greens, herbs, flowers and perennials that will establish themselves and spread on their own accord.

Piece by piece, it’s coming together. Now that I’ve got several years of hugelkultur gardening under my belt, I’m ready to start creating the perennial kitchen garden I’ve been dreaming of.

Because there’s nothing better than having loads of fresh herbs in the kitchen. Or putting up your own for winter use. I love having fresh flowers on hand in the summer months and particularly, cutting flowers. A perennial garden is the thing I dream of.

And thanks to hugelkulturs, I’m several steps closer to that dream.