Hugelkultur is a technique designed to help retain moisture and nutrients in a defined space. This is done by placing larger, rotting wood pieces at the bottom of a garden bed and layering materials above to create a raised garden bed from the ground up! The wood at the bottom will slowly rot away – providing slow release food for your plants and also retain water where plant roots can easily access it.
The best thing about it – you can do it in smaller scales too!! This technique works great for pots and often means you won’t need to water the containers as much. Added bonus – you’re saving money on soil to fill the containers!
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Hey there!
Welcome to my channel, The Nature Patch where I like to share all things gardening, cooking and environmental science in my Australian bushland backyard.
My name is Robyn, an environmental scientist working towards completing a PhD in understanding how people’s wellbeing and their connection to nature is impacted by land use change. I’ve always loved gardening and nature and lately have been interested in growing my own organic food!
On this channel you’ll find videos relating to my harvests, ‘how to’ videos, composting, soil health, ecosystem services, and seed saving.
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42 Comments
Nice tutorial
Good info
I like to grow in containers and raised beds so it will be worth trying.
Great video. Sharing with a new gardener friend who is using containers. Take care Robyn keep the videos coming. ~Dani
Good method – thank you for sharing
HELLO! I just subscribed! I'm friends with Dani Happy Farms Louisiana! This video is super helpful! I'm going try this! I am making my first ever garden. Feel free to check out my channel if you want to. I turned on the notification bell to all to keep watching your videos! 🙂
You'll definitely need that woody layer to retain the moisture in your warm climate. Yeah I totally get the soil thing, it gets really expensive, that's why I hate the method of growing potatoes in bags🥔. Too expensive. I'm sure once you get chickens you'll find the bedding useful. The cats will love that grass. 😊 Take care.
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I've just started filling pots with old sticks, can't believe this method isn't more well known
Excellent content. I am a Hugelkultur enthusiast 🙂 and it was delightful to watch your video.
I like to shred my brown paper grocery bags and use that in my compost as well.
Very interesting. Can you use untreated lumber chunks? Thx.
Hi Robyn I have a block of land near Mudgee and am clearing a few gum trees and a couple of small pines next week.. in the past I've kept the timber for the combustion fire in me little shed and burnt the smaller branches n leaves. after watching this I wonder if I could use them for the method you have just shown here? The soil is mostly clay and as you may know it's very dry in the summer. I have a little excavator out there so it would be quite easy to cover the smaller branches n leaves… what do you think? just came across you channel this evening cheers Matt
Will try this with my tomatoes this weekend thanks for the idea
Wow!!..Is their anything better than a pretty lady that that loves to garden???
I have been having luck with hanging planters lately. I have trouble with bugs and cats, so hanging the plants protects them from the worst of things. But the containers are heavy, as much of the soil is yard soil and is mostly sand. I would like to make them lighter, so was thinking about using dried grass, old twigs, old leaves – to pack the bottom of the containers. It seems that this would help keep things lighter while providing a lot of nutrients. I think we need to be careful to not use green stuff so much, because it will cause problems as it breaks down.
I just started growing this year and I'm doing it in pots. It's really been instructive for me with regards to what works, what doesn't and what I need to be better at. As a result, I will definitely doing hugelkulter in pots next year. I'll also be building two raised garden beds and those will be hugelkultur beds. Really looking forward to it
Hi, came over from Josh, InYa Yard Homestead, new friend, I just subbed to you. Please check out my channel and sub if you like it. Thank you so much. Let’s grow together.❤️
I use the Hugelkultur method in my small back yard. Check out my channel.
Great video! Always keen for more aussie channels to follow! Thanks for sharing!
great idea , cheers !
Well done! Thank you!
Lovely voice!:) useful tips! I am doing a pot in pot. Thank you v much!
I use this method works well for growing tomatoes, eggplants, cucurbits, spinaches and other vegetables, but find it does not work so well with root vegetables like potatoes and cassava.
Nice video. Thanks for sharing
Did my first hugelkultur pot today for a chilli plant. No coffee grounds because starbucks doesn't give them out anymore due to covid. Had to make do with dandelion and horse chestnut leaves for the nitrogen. Put a bit of charcoal too, I want to see if biochar does what it's supposed to. Great video 🙂
Hey Robin, i love this video….i recently read about this method for raised beds, i didnt think about it for containers! Its also cost effective as less compost needed. Subscribing to your channel 🙋♀️ to expand the youtube gardening community….lets support!
I tried this out in one grow bag this year. Will do it in all my bags this year for reasons you mentioned. Nice video.
Very beautiful video. Love it ❤️
I love gardening. I am starting to use hugelkultur potting in some of my plants. I am also introducing to use charcoal in some of my pots. Loved your video!
Could I use boxes and paper bags?
Hello new fren watching yout how to make garden soil thanks for sharing
One more to you Robin. Hugelkultur is my favorite here.
Great technique. I use that here too and it really helps.
Good video.
A few years ago I made a hugel garden.
5 tons of used coffee grounds and 12 tons of wood chips plus some logs/branches.
Covered it up with soil from the local yard waste (really BAD soil IMHO).
The first year, soil temperatures 8" (about 20cm) below the surface got to a whopping 130 degrees F (sorry can't convert to Celsius in my head) with some places up to 165F.
Tomato plants burned up.
Only weeds grew monsterously.
Had to drench it every 2-3 days for fear of a fire.
The next year, things improved rather well but not as spectacularly as I had hoped.
About every 2-3 years I have to add about 80 bags of leaves mowed over 3 times and mix them in.
If you want to do a hugelgarden, best to start it in the early fall. It does take time to build.
It takes time to heat up just like a compost pile does. Do it right and you most likely won't see any snow on it if it snows where you are.
I also did hugel pots. Can't see much of a difference in those either.
I still have to water regularly.
Note: Warning! Avoid any wood from the Walnut family. Leaves too. They contain Jugalone which inhibits or kills other plants.
The 'gold standard' for compost (hugel included) is Maple.
Hardwoods like Oak take a long time to decay. Takes a while to soak up water too. Takes up to 20 years for them to decay.
And be sure to use aged wood parts.
Ont trick I did so was make my own garden watering Ollas out of 8" diameter clay pots (unglazed), using the lid as a cap.
Those work very well.
About coffee grounds:
Many coffee growers are now using pesticides and herbicides. Be careful.
Coffee grounds are worms favorite food.
They are also the favorite food for the dreaded grub worms.
Coffee grounds contain 11 pounds of Nitrogen per 1000 pounds.
Human urine:
It is 100% bioavailable for all plants. (means plants can use it right now)
Other sources of nitrogen require soil microbes to break it down before the nitrogen is bioavailable.
If you take the amount of human urine you produce in 1 year, you get about 10 tons of nitrogen.
Some countries are requiring urine only toilets to gather the urine for use as a fertilizer.
When using human urine, mix 1 part urine to 10 parts water (same as when you mix compost tea to water).
Morning urine is best.
Men who eat meat have a chemical excreted in their morning urine that can repel herbivores.
Sorry ladies, but yours won't work, meat eater or vegan.
why not just compost it directly?
I just “discovered” you on YouTube. Very nicely done. I enjoyed the video and keep up the good work!
Would it make sense to use the scraps of the same plant your planting? If for example I have a bunch of dead arugula and want to plant the new seeds, would it make sense to use the dead arugula in the food scrap layer? I wonder if that would help or hurt the new seeds.
Would cut grass provide nitrogen?
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Hi.. Shredded paper, fall leave , leaf mulch and lots of cardboard. Very successful for many containers and a huge potatoes bed I built Up from the ground.
Very successful last year.
I use mostly Smart Pots (fabric pots) and I've been wanting to try this. Has anyone tried this out with fabric pots and had success? Excess water runs out of the fabric pot sides and bottom, so I'm curious if the stuff would stay wet enough to eventually break down. Thanks!
Would strawberry stems and scraps work above the branches m
I didnt have sticks but I used grass clippings, shredded paper, cofee grounds and food waste, is it ok without sticks? Can I add woodchips?
Great video! I have wanted to do Hugelkulture for years. About two weeks ago, I planted tomatos in buckets with this method. I figure I can re-plant in the buckets for at least 5 years if it works out. Jusg be sure not to put any poisonous wood in there. I used oak that was cut 2 years ago. Thanks for the great presentation.