What Happens When You Bury Old Logs In A Raised Bed?

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I've seen similar results in my raised bed hugelkultur experiments. Quality hardwood logs will take years to break down, so perhaps use a softer wood if you want better decay and sponge effect for water retention. However, as you guys pointed out, whatever wood or organic fill you place in the base of a raised bed is a great benefit to the soil, animals, fungi, and ultimately the plants. Good vid! 👍🙂

It actually doesn't surprise me that you were finding long, healthy roots penetrating those logs. When we first moved into our current home, a large tree on the lawn went down in a storm and left a big trunk that would've taken ages to remove. Since we planned to build a vegetable garden around there anyway, we just dumped a mix of compost, woodchips, and gardening soil on the tree trunk, watered it all down, and planted pumpkins on it. The pumpkins took off and by midsummer you couldn't even see the trunk, it was just a mass of pumpkin vines. We got some good-sized pie pumpkins from it, and when we were cleaning up the vines in the fall, we found that some of the roots had penetrated all the way through the trunk and into the ground. Part of the tree trunk was so decomposed that it just crumbled in our hands. A very successful experiment!

I cracked the code on this about 10 yesrs ago. I cut and drill holes in just a bit smaller logs than these, and then I soak them in a barrel of sugar water. While soaking I put a vaccume on it that I got from an air mattress, the vaccume pulls the sugar liquid deep in the logs. I then inoculate with reishi mushroom plugs, and let sit for awhile before burying in the garden so they can outcompete other fungi. Then when the garden grows I typically can harvest reishi mushrooms as well. Each year the yields increase.

I love how Jacques has become a genie-like-entity at this point

This is adorable. Just 2 boys super stoked to be playing in the dirt.

I swear, finding mycelium and an abundance of earthworms in your soil after years of hard work is like opening a present on Christmas morning!

It's so delightful to hear two people with knowledge bounce off each other while inspecting something new to them. Jacques is a delight

I've done hugelkultur even before I knew that was what it was called. I didn't use large logs like you did. I'd just split the logs in half or in quarters. They were still good size; but, did break down a bit faster. It definitely is a good idea for anybody who is trying to save on potting soil.

If you reverse the direction of the bolts (or atleast some of the bolts), threads facing out of the the bin, you create external attachment points for anything from irrigation to height extentions, even trellises etc. Also boltheads were meant to take a beating more so than nuts so you would also then be exposing the more hardy part of the bolt to the wearing side.

My kids have grown up watching me get excited about discoveries in our dirt and compost. Now they love to watch you guys and they realize dad's not so strange after all. :) Keep up the great work!

One solution to the settling(and eventually holes in the soil) that we personally use in Alaska, is when we start a bed with this, we spend a few extra bucks on natural wood heater pellets. Theyre natural, and spongey, but also expands when wetted down. Theyre also soft sawdust when the expand which eventually becomes a superhighway for worms all the way up into the bed because the worms seem to follow the flow of nutrients up through the logs. I highly reccomend this, if you use hugelkulture. Its made the whole process better for us in the north. I can imagine it will work even better in warm climates.

We did 28" high cedar/metal raised beds this year with hugelkultur method. Already decomposing giant poplar tree we had cut down 5 years ago at the bottom -( smaller parts of it were like sponge.) We added tree branches from the spring ice storm damaged trees , shredded cardboard/twigs/leaves; topped off wth rotted manure and compost, straw mulch. Everything I grew did well, hoping it will be better next year! this really works! I even had mushrooms sprouting in there!

Hugelkulture is normally done with a mound, not a flat top. So it settles closer to flat from that mounded shape. The mounding has several other benefits as well, particularly with regards to the way the sun hits the mound.

My best friend is a native bee expert at the University of Minnesota. After she began using hugelkultur, she had bees nesting in her yard for the first time in 20 years. This is another great reason to build hugelkultur beds in the garden! The work of pollination done by the bees is what keeps the rest of us fed. Thank you for this video!!

We use wood in most of our beds. Raised or not raised. As the wood rots it also helps to prevent everything up above it from compacting. But we don't use huge split pieces of firewood. We use limbs, bark, even wood that is starting to rot that gets clean up from other areas. I think that helps.

This is so cool! I soaked my logs in water for a week before putting them at the bottom of my Birdies raised bed. I also tossed in some broken up remnants of a mushroom block before covering with some raised bed mix. No idea how it's doing but I haven't noticed much sinkage yet in two seasons. I'd love to pull it up and check it out like you guys did but I also don't really want to disturb it. Thanks for tearing one up for the video. Super fascinating!

I think splitting the logs into multiple smaller logs would speed up decomposition a lot. That’s what I’m going to do with the remainder of the 8 older beds I purchased from Kevin

I’ve heard that the correct method is to use logs that are already decaying. The ones used in this bed are pretty freshly cut, so they won’t break down as quickly or retain as much moisture.

The previous owner of my property buried logs under the planting beds at the back of the property - all 100 feet by 20 feet!!! I thought it was a disaster when the neighbour told me that, but then I planted hedging cedars. They have flourished and grown well, even with severe droughts and minimal watering. Honestly, I believe in hugelkultur now. I'll be using it in my raised beds because, like you, I want tall beds.