Interesting Gardening Technique

[coastie]

Watched this movie called Back to Eden a couple weeks ago. It is an interesting approach to gardening. Basically no till deep mulching. Not sure if I buy into it all the way but I just got done moving wood chips and compost onto a quarter of the garden. We are going to try it. If it works great. If not then I will have a lot of mulch to rake up. The guy is very passionate about both God and his method. Here is the link:

http://backtoedenfilm.com/

 

[JimB]

i can agree with the compost etc, but the wood chips in my mind

will take a lot of nitrogen out of the soil during its decay process.

IMHO

 

[coastie]

Thats what I am thinking and my big hang up with the process. The guy explains it is the mulch is on top of the soil and not mixed in so it doesnt pull out the nitrogen. You actually pull the mulch away and plant in the soil underneath. We will see next year.

 

[mis4mike]

Please update us on your results. I'd like to see more gardening threads here

 

[OPM]

Beautiful, all be it a very long film. Any one spotted a deer???

However, there is really nothing new there, or at least nothing new to me. I never ever till. There are many very educational books on the “universe” of soil. It is full of life – actually it is shocking how much life and how diverse the soil universe. The inner balance is very fragile and tilling is similar to us experiencing mega earthquakes or asteroid bombardment. Sure the life survives and societies are rebuild, but not without lots of time and wasted energy. Unlike Paul (in the film), I do not even uproot plants at harvest. In my garden, only the diseased plants get uprooted. Many who grow green manure till it in – BIG mistake! Just mow it down and leave the roots alone.

FYI, I also use shredded brown recycled cardboard. You’d think it would be blown away, but it stays put. The key though you must have a crosscut shredder. I also use cardboard + straw as bedding for my worm farm. They LOVE it.

 

[BenDover]

In the spring I have a mega garden project. I'm clearing a 100x100ft area in the middle of the woods for a fruit orchard/garden. I'm currently ripping out trees with a winch and tractor. I have been pondering how I would prepare the area for planting.

This video got me thinking quite a bit. I have assloads of branches that I could turn into shavings if I bought a PTO chipper. I'm now thinking that maybe I should just leave the forest floor alone, maybe pull the larger roots and obvious rocks. I was thinking of making some Hugelkultur beds with some dead trees...this concept seems like less work to me and uses the same concept of rotted wood storing moisture.

 

[OPM]

Unless your forest is diseased – YES!!! leave the good stuff alone. Some stomps can be used to grow mushrooms. Others you can grind down or burn. Leave roots alone – they won’t bother your vegetables or most of your trees and in 15-20 years most of them will be gone. If your woods are suffering from disease – growing vegetables might still be ok as is, but I am not sure about orchard. I have few trees growing in Maine, but I know relatively little about the subject. However, my apples seem happy between other trees. I did plant them in slightly raised beds, but other than that… Actually one tree was planted 2” from a pine I cut. It took root no problem.

I have not experience with Hugelkultur. But if your lot is leveled – I would not do it. If it slopes, might be interesting way to level it.

 

[Knob Creek]

Resurrecting this thread. Anyone have any current experience with this?

hugelkultur: the ultimate raised garden beds