Mr. Permaculture on Adventure #2 - Hugelkultur on my Concrete Driveway
Hugelkultur, pronounced Hoo-gul-culture, means hill culture or hill mound. It is nothing more than making raised garden beds filled with rotten wood. It makes those beds loaded with organic material, nutrients, air pockets for the roots of what you plant. As years go by, your raised garden bed becomes incredibly rich and loaded with soil life.
The design is very simple - basically piling up wood logs, wood branches, and wood chips then plant in it.
I have a few goals in mind and Hugelkultur becomes a solution.
My goals are:
- Increase food production in my small suburban garden
- Get rid of some organic debris
- Reduce some hardscape surface on my circular concrete driveway
Hugelkultur is the solution!
First I pile organic debris on top of my concrete driveway. Starting from wood logs on the bottom and ending up with wood chips on the top.
I waited for 2 months, made holes on top of Hugelkultur and filled each hole with about 2 quarts/liters of compost, and planted my tomatoes. (I was waiting for the rain to fully soak up the bed; otherwise, I could have planted right away if watering it thoroughly.)
The picture below shows my tomato plants after 2 weeks of planting.
A closer look at the tomato plant
More tomatoes just planted in another Hugelkultur on my driveway. (lemon, sugar apple, asparagus in the picture, too)
In summary, Hugelkultur is a perfect no-dig solution for turning organic waste into raised garden beds for your productive food plants even on hard surfaces.
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Next posts will be my adventures of
Past posts on my adventures:
That is incredible, I've never even considered doing Hugelkultur on cement before! You have totally opened up my eyes to new possibilities!
I am so happy I opened up your eyes to new possibilities!
Under normal circumstance, people wouldn't do that. Why spend so much money on cement, then cover it up? But for those with concrete surface already in place and limited space to grow food, this is a perfect solution!
For me, I would rather let the sun nurtures the food plants than heat up the unnecessary hardscape on a south-facing slope, transmit the heat into the house, and increase my air conditioning usage.
I have upvote here as an encouragement, please continue to make great garden post, I enjoy gardening too, especially growing shady palm and fruit trees and vines.
Thank you for your upvote and encouragement! What fruit trees and vines do you grow?
All sorts, alot of citrus, lemon, valencia oranges, pomelo, also chillies, bitter melon (great from helping the body produce hgh as we age), and others. Vines includes sweet potatoes, strawberries (mostly died out now - it's a winter crop), and my favorite dragon fruit which should be blooming soon.
Very nice! From what you grow, I presume you are in a warm climate.
There are wild bitter melons about 2 inches long growing everywhere in my garden. I enjoy eating them even raw!
Wow that's really healthy, good on you. Good check out part 2, it is ready, but I suggest you upvote it soon as it's almost near the 30 minute mark for maximum curation payout to yourself. I'm confident you will be rewarded well in 7 days time.
Thanks. I have upvoted your part 2 near 30 minutes mark. Do you know if curation award will slowly diminish after 30 minutes?