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I know there are folks on the Garden thread who have talked about having very poor soil. I had never heard of Hugelkultur Garden Beds before .... it’s very interesting!

On this blog post is also a podcast interview & transcript.

Hugelkultur Garden Beds (What, Why & How)
https://melissaknorris.com/podcast/hugelkultur-gardening/

From link (excerpt):

If you’ve never heard the term hugelkultur gardening you’re in for a treat. This centuries-old method of gardening is making a comeback, and this post is filled with everything you need to know to successfully grow a garden using this German peasant traditional way of gardening.

What is Hugelkultur?

Hugelkultur gardening is a multi-layered garden bed that uses wood as a base. It’s a fantastic way to build up quality soil in an area where good soil is non-existent. You can also use this method to help amend clay or silty soil as well.

How to Build a Hugelkultur Bed

A hugelkultur bed is actually a permaculture bed that mimics the forest floor. The beds include five layers, number one is the bottom layer and number 5 would be the top layer:

Large logs
Smaller wood bits/branches
Greens (or “hot” materials)
Soil
Mulch

You start with logs, then smaller wood bits or branches. As this wood breaks down it tends to pull nitrogen, so to counteract this you put down a layer of “hot” matter such as fresh grass clippings, leaves, animal manure (that’s a couple months old), etc.

After this layer you’ll need to add in about ten inches of good growing soil. It depends on how deep you need your soil to be depending on what you’re growing, then on the very top you add a nice layer of mulch. The mulch is the weed suppressant.

As the wood on the bottom of the bed breaks down it will actually act like a sponge, retaining moisture and requiring you to water your garden less frequently.

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I noticed you do still need to add some good soil on top of a couple of layers so this method doesn’t create good soil out of thin air (unfortunately).