I Filled a Deep Raised Bed with Logs to Save Money on Soil!
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- Опубліковано 5 вер 2024
- Don't waste money filling your raised bed with quality soil if you don't have to. Me and Tuck will show you how to fill a bed with logs and sticks so you save money and get a whole bunch of added benefits! This technique has been around for a long time and it is knows as huglekultur.
Thanks for the kind words and support 😁🐕❤️
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The Hugel method: James, Kevin, & Mark approved. What more can you ask for?! 🤓
By the way, Kevin, I use your video to gauge all raised beds because you and I are the same height. So, you sir are an excellent resource.
Mark from Self Sufficient Me?
Gaaaah do a big old collab already
@@Mywalkingblog Happy to play the body double!
@@Simply.Owanda ;)
A quick way to start log decomposition is to leave it in a moist shaded area of the yard. Additionally, place some dirt to bring microorganisms. You'll be surprised how fast it gets inoculated with fungus too.
Thanks Tuck and you too, James :)
Maybe cover the moist logs with a tarp?
I hadn’t thought of that! Thanks, I’ve got a bunch of logs waiting to be used for this purpose.
Bokashi is a great option also
Hi James! I really really enjoyed this video! I appreciated the format you used very much. You saved the clips up from beginning to end, then edited them into a complete start-to-finish video. This is a valuable learning tool! I wouldn't call it wordy, I'd call it teaching. Thank you for the effort you put into it, and all the information I got from it! Best to you and Tuck, and the rest of your family!
Thank you for the kind and encourang comment Ke Le. That means a lot to me and Tuck 🐕❤️😁
@@jamesprigioni 🤗
I couldn't agree more. Thanks again. Great video.
@@jamesprigioni Hey James. Love the channel. Think you should check out " "Garden like a Viking" channel. He is Super at breaking down the complexities of soil health and how to build it year round among countless other topics. You can tell the guy is an intellectual { I believe teaching on these things }but has a great knack for simplifying and I have learned quite a lot as I have with your videos. I noticed you making what he says is a huge mistake by pulling the cabbage root out when you replanted the lettuce. the video "should I use cover crops" explains along with much more. I think you along with what this guy offers is a deadly combination. Peace.
I trick I learned for projects like this is to add a 5 gal bucket of soil off of a “forest” floor - anywhere that has relatively undisturbed soil and trees at least a couple decades old. The bacteria and fungi that this adds will speed up the process of rotting the wood. I use this for leaf mould, breaking down piles of wood chips, adding to compost, etc - no reason it wouldn’t help here. If you have leaf mould, a couple scoops of that added to that first layer or soil would work too.
Hi James, I love your videos. You were one of the first growers I started watching years ago and you inspired me to dig deeper into growing. I love how you learn from your failures and successes and share them with us. I wish you continued success in growing. I'm in zone 7a Tennessee .
I had 19 Birdies beds to fill, so I packed them as well as I could with wood and then poured sand in to fill all the crevices, using water to wash it in thoroughly. Then good stuff on top. Sand is the most economical media there is and it drains exceptionally well.
I like your idea.
That sounds good, but wouldnt it be more economical to dig up a root cellar and utilize said dirt for planter boxes? Preferably Forest Dirt?
Or is it just a waste regardless? (Maybe not feasible at the scale of 19+ beds)
@@btccricket14 I have no idea what you mean by digging [up] a root cellar. If I have a house, I can't dig under it and I wouldn't want to dig a cellar somewhere my house is not. Plus, we don't have cellars here as the water table is a foot deep at 0 elevation. Then there's the size, a cellar might be 50 or 100 yards of earth? I have no idea, but that's a lot of digging with a shovel, I used about 6 to 8 yards of material. Then there's the earth, it's clay here, the whole point of the raised beds is to get off the ground and get some drainage. The water is ankle deep for a week after it rains hard.
If you can get free sand, that's great. I would have to buy it for $26 a yard. I can buy aged, blended compost for $36 a yard, so not that much more. Plants can utilize compost, but sand is just inert. Helps drainage but there's no nutrition there.
@@slydog7131 I pay about that for it. But why would you pay $10 more for something that's irrelevant? Plus I don't have that compost option, not that I would use it, since the plants can't use it.
James so happy to see your making videos later in the season. ❤️ 💙 💜 💖 Tuck
Yours is the most relatable method explanation of how to build a raised bed garden - and why! Thanks for the abundant guidance and quick pace! Learned a LOT here!
I know its worth it. I build all gardens like this. Once built, I also feed the toip of the beds with smaller branches that fall from my Oak and my Moringa trees.
I usually collectand stack the logs and let them sit out in a pile for a full year before inserting them into the bed.
Glad you talked about tree types….we have a Portuguese Laurel the berries are toxic the leaves are just as bad. Birds eat berries no problem.
Thanks! I want hugelkultur too. Yes a lot of gardeners think that they fail with the hugelkultur, but the truth is it takes a lot of time to benefit from the log. Once the logs rot, it will be very effective, but it always take too long time, so you are right, we have to put already decaying woods in the bed.
I don't think most people really grasp how many years it takes logs to decay at the bottom of those beds.
💕❤️💕 love how Tuck is such a veggie lover.
Tuck is out in the back foraging🥰
Yup, that's what you do when you are the boss! 🤣
Great video , I was waiting for the video I can now go to sleep it's 1:47 am in Kenya . Keep up the good work.
Thanks Lilly, me and Tuck appreciate the kind words! Haha, thanks for staying up to watch it, and have a great sleep!!!
@@jamesprigioni haha anytime and thanks I will.
I love the garden composition content during what most people consider the “off season” for gardening. Seeing the bounty that you produce is very inspiring! But I find the process of how and why you chose specific methods very interesting. Keep up the great work!!
Hello Danielle, How are you doing today?
This is how Self Sufficient Me does it! Love that Aussie man.
Tuck! ❤❤❤
Thanks for this info. I too have raised beds and the first season, I watched my soil sink about 8 inches down after the season was over...lol! Live and learn!
Raised beds definitely need to be topped off lots of settling happens. It's one of those cons that people rarely talk about!
Awesome video James!! Thank you for sharing such a good explanation of how to fill the raised beds. I really like that you also explained what didn’t work for you and why, that’s so important too! Always new things to learn in the garden 🌱😊
And of course… TUCK!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ what a cutie pie and such a great helper!! KEEP GROWING AND LOVE YOUR VIDEOS! Thank you again! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I did not find this video to be too wordy. I liked it very much and found it to be helpful. I am setting up my first beds in the spring and your knowledge and wisdom is helping me greatly. Thank you! ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Tuck is adorable! He reminds me of my pug, Ozzy. He loved to go around and pick tomatoes fresh off the vine and eat them. He loved to eat pretty much everything in the garden. Unfortunately he’s no longer allowed in the garden since his allergy test reportedly was allergic to tomatoes.
That's a familiar experience! I was eating bread with almost every meal while growing up, and by 26 I started developing wheat allergy, which has become fatal later on.
I have a lab who loves those tomatoes to eat and another who thinks we are just growing balls for her to play with
Great circle of life. ❤💚🧡💙💛
My son got me doing this going great
We made several raised beds and put a layer of wood chunks, then branches then a combo of soil and compost. Over the next few years the soil sunk down and we have had to add soil/compost each spring. We nailed a wire screen on the bottom of the raised beds to keep out voles and moles. They are so much easier to weed, plant and harvest.
Good information as always James. I really love seeing Tuck eat his veggies.
💙💙💚💚💙💙💚💚
Thanks John C! Yeah me too, I still find it hilarious that he just digs up the carrots when I am not looking. From being in videos for so long he knows when to go get the carrots so he can get attention I think 🤣
Early fam. Thanks James for everything you teach us. The love and joy you spread infectiously is reinvigorating. ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ tuck we love you so much thank you for letting us see your food forest
Great video. Not too long. Looks like an ideal raised bed for the elderly and disabled too.
This was my thought also. At 65 and with essential tremor, this method looks like lt would help me greatly.
Blessings to all!
I have two of those type high raised beds waiting to be put together and am planning on filling the bottom with logs & sticks from my land. Thanks for the explanation of why your earlier attempt didn't work. More information is always good.
Thank you for posting what doesnt work so we dont make those mistakes! Thinking of using some Fall leaves at the bottom of big planters this year.
Thanks for the mention I got millions of leaves around!
Tuck is cute and doesn’t eat that much, I have a Rott that likes to raid the fruits and veggies.. he doesn’t leave much behind! Even pulls the cabbage out by the roots and chews on them like a bone..😂
If you could have burned some of the logs into bio- char would have been beneficial to to soil too. Great video
I was going to ask about that, because it seems that would keep any undue levels of fungus, etc, in check.
I just love your videos. Some of the techniques I may not use, but I am happy that I learned the technique anyway. Also your positive energy is a joy along with your easy to understand teaching. And Tuck is just adorable.
I did a whole hügelkultur bed with my kids' school last year. We watered with ollas. This was in Arizona, on clay soil. We did not use beds. The plants did great, and the biodiversity increased in the backyard we did it in. I would recommend it anytime to anyone. It is Soo much less expensive, and produces a great product.
I’m in AZ too… Phoenix… this method is fabulous here. What part of az are you in? Sounds like a fabulous project for the kids!
I used this method for my raised beds and I LOVE IT!! so much more action, so much more and my pest issue was super low this year. Definitely going to continue using it.
I’m always happy when I see your videos post this late in the season. I always cross my fingers and hope James won’t take the winter off from uploading 🤞😊
Very cool! I might try this down in South Carolina for my channel. Great job dude!
I have a dumb question. Pots with no drain holes are bad, because you'll likely have standing water in the soil, roots rot, etc.
So I just realized: Isn't a raised bed sort of the same thing? Heavy rain, water fills up the soil, etc. Or, is it simply a case of the water seeping straight into the ground-level soil and below enough?
It really depends on what’s below your beds. I have thick hard clay soil so I made my beds at least 16” tall so that I could fill half of it with logs and sticks so that I could have the raised beds drain into the logs.
I also live in a very rainy environment (E TN) and so I used concrete blocks which are porous which also helped. I didn’t have issues with draining and in fact my tomatoes in the beds grew to gigantic mega vines and were very successful for my first year gardening.
I topped off with homemade compost throughout the year and everything did quite well. Hopefully my success will repeat next year.
I’ll add that, I had grow bags (5 gal and 25 gal bags) totally filled with soil and they did very poorly with draining so next year I plan on putting sticks and wood chips on the bottom of the bags so that the bags have better drainage. I’ll also do better by adding my own soil mix, since in many of the grow bags I used purchased potting mix and I think the one I make myself is a lot better (lot more perlite for better drainage).
I hope to have a pupper like tuck one day
I use hardware cloth, the heavy stuff under all my raised beds to keep the critters out.
Smart! Good idea
Black Friday Sale! COUPON CODE: TUCK-BLACKFRIDAY5 lets.growepic.co/jamesprigioni
" Mycilium Running " by Paul Stamets is a great book on mushrooms .
I'm trying huglekultur on my small ground beds this next spring. I started trying to grow about two years ago and I'm so excited to try again in the third year. Last growing season I made about two dozen small tomatoes, a couple of beans and lots of herbs to eat and dry out to put into soups and meals for the winter. You are amazing! I love your show, your enthusiasm and your dog.
I am in the market for about 4 raised beds but dang Epic's pricing is way outta my league even with their discounts. Sorry James
Very good video. I put logs in my bed too. Seems to be working well. Tuck ❤❤
Thank u James for the valuable information!!!❤
Another benefit to burying logs is the logs will absorb any extra nitrogen and hold it until the soil around it starts to drop in nitrogen. Then the logs will release the nitrogen making it available to the plants.
Appreciate the wordiness. Hope to implement some of these techniques for next year myself. Now that I know :)
Tuck would have to be the healthiest dog in the world. It will be interesting to see how he ages over the years.
When I built my raised beds about 3-4 years ago, (not my first raised bed garden) I decided to bury logs, sticks, and fall leaves. The beds are about 18" deep. I ended up digging one up this year. I had asparagus in it, but wanted to move that into my permaculture area to give me another raised bed for annual vegetables (Not sure how the asparagus will make out, but I'll buy more if it doesn't grow). So, I dug down into the bed to get that asparagus out. I came across some very weird fungus, so I guess the logs are breaking down pretty well. Thanks for talking about this. I did it to provide fertilizer for my beds for years to come, as well as fill the beds with something free. The one thing I will say is that it seems like these beds lose more soil than my beds in the past did. I suspect it's because as the leaves and branches break down, the dirt compacts more than it would if it were dirt to start. A lot more air holes to fill. (I didn't stomp on it to start.) Love seeing Tuck!
I would think adding wood chips as a mulch on top after planting every year would help as they will break down and create more soil, hands (and cost) free.
Great information! Learned a lot today! Love the little carrot king 💙 🥕💙🥕💙🥕💙🥕💙🥕💙🥕💙🥕💙🥕💙🥕💙🥕💙🥕
I made four vary long raised beds with pallets and metal roofing for the sides the sides are two feet wide so I added four pallets then covered the pallets with heavy plastic then added sticks an stuff so I'm not filling with much dirt and compost.
Thanks! This is just the kind of video I wanted. The step by step on how it's done. 👍
Thank you James and Tuck!
Great video. Thanks for talking through hugelkultur. Your experience helps a lot. Your channel is one of the most inspiring...plus we love Tuck! Let's go!!!
Thanks, James and Tuck.
Hello Julie, How are you doing today?
Hey James. I did this to a tall bed spring of '21. I guess I created a sort of stomach ache as you put it as the plants didn't do too well. This year was better, as I was able to top it up before planting. I actually grew some fantastic corn this year ! Thanks for another fun video : ) Hi Tuck !!
Been doing this in the garden and landscape my entire life with great results.
I also recycle my Christmas tree this way every year to top things off. I’ve always had amazing harvests and recommend filling beds or even in-ground planting this way.
Thankf for always making great videos ❤
You an Tuck did great,❤❤❤❤❤
Great video. We have some wood that we stacked to use for firewood. We found that we weren't using it and it started to rot. We were planning to burn it on our burn pile when I discovered Hugelkultur. Now I will be using this well-rotted wood in my new raised garden beds. What a great way to use up a natural resource that would otherwise have gone to waste. Thank you for sharing your experience with Hugelkultur.
Hi, one of my favorite UA-camr
Let's Gooo! Thanks for the kind words, and glad to hear that my friend. 😁🐕❤️
Gotta LOVE Tuck - at least you know he's never going to totally starve! (Good job you don't have butcher's shop!) Great to see this work so well - could you use some hay & straw bales if you didn't have access to logs & brush? Although this will be a great way to use up our fallen branches - I guess eucalypt will be OK to use? Some trees might be better than others - fruit trees I'd imagine would be great! The results looked FAB!
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. Last year, after retirement, we built our own raised bed in our yard by using stuffs that we already had. I actually wanted to get the ready made raised beds like yours but could not find here in Thailand. Anyway, we tried to save money by putting in our old mango tree logs that we cut down the tree a year or two years earlier. We also put in some leaves, etc. and some kitchen scraps. Then we put in dried composed (from dried cow manured and coconut shell,etc) and topped with soil that we bought. We waited for about a month and then tired to plants some vegetables. It was very good. Now, it’s been a year and it’s time to put new stuff in again.
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤love your channel. You and tuck are so full of good information and just love your contagious enthusiasm.
Gardening is greatness! Thanks brother!
Good Boy Tuck!🤎🤍🤎🤍🤎🤎🤍🤎🤍🤎🤍🤎🤍🤎🤍🤎🤎🖤 He's a good boy! 🤎🤍🤎🤍🤎🤍🤎🤍🤎
❤❤❤ tuck is a smart boy! He’s a natural forager! If you have kids you can show them the video and say “see, even tuck knows you should eat your vegetables!” 😂❤️ what a good boy! Just be careful with him around unripe tomatoes and grapes cause they can both be toxic to dogs
I love the vids like this, the explanation helps to make sense. Thank you.
Hiya Tuck, ya legend! 👋❤❤❤
Super informative and I love your energy. Thanks!
Good to see Mike Majlak doing something productive for society now!
those veggies -unbelievable growth! wow!
last year i got 3 big raised beds, adding 2 more at the end of this year.... i also use hugulkulture to fill em, filling the top part with free compost we can get from our local recycling station here in the Netherlands (if we come get it ourselves ;) ... and lol.. the amount of trips we made to fill all my containers and beds + rest of garden.... it was alot ;) arround 10m2
the harvest i got from potatoes in one of the beds was more then all the containers(i also used) combined... and with far less seed potatoes (thats why i decided to add even more raised beds)
so yeah it works ;)
I love the energy in your intros :D
❤ I always love seeing Tuck
Thanks James. I love your videos. I just built 5 4x8 foot raised beds. There 22 inches deep. I watched your video at a great time because I was trying to figure out how to fill them. I live in northwest Arkansas in the Ozark mountains. I own 40 acres of mostly forest so I have a lot of decaying trees laying around. I already filled 3 with compost that I made then I put 5 inches of crushed leaves on top of that. I will try the wood on the other 2. Thank you.
You won't be sorry for using old rotting wood from your foest. we have done it for years. I have a tractor with a front end loader so I get as big and rotten as the bed will hold. I also dig up crumbling stumps. We build beds at 32" deep and only top of with 16" of compost and soil. The rest is rotting fiber/wood. It's a big bonus when you own your own forest. Our modified Hugel beds have out preformed our standard beds hands down.
@@danaschmidt4417 Thank you Dana. Yes, it only makes sense. I see things growing on rotting wood all the time. I saw some red oak logs yesterday that I will use. I make my compost out of saw dust, grass clippings and leaves. It turns into to dark looking dirt. I’m hoping to have good luck with it in the spring. What do you think?
@@tomsommer54 Your compost sounds great. Red oak needs to be pretty rotten to use, it tends to be a tad more acid, but if it not solid wood in the center use it. I like Maple it breaks down faster
@@danaschmidt4417 Red and white oak is pretty much all I have besides black walnut cherry and sycamore. The sycamore falls a lot here. They usually grow in 2s and one rots at a time. The red oak I used in my boxes was honey combs rotten. It was from a fallen dead tree. Is sycamore good to use?
@@danaschmidt4417 Did you make your beds 8x4’ @32 inches deep. I can easily do that on my next set of boxes.
Thank you for this video! I am going to save it so I can have my husband watch it. I tried to explain to him why filling a bed like this is the way to go. You explained it so well!
I did that to my first bed, and am working on my second for the spring. It saves so much $. Thank you James and Tuck!
I 'accidently' created this same raised bed scenario in a livestock watering trough that my dad gave me. It had developed leaks from rusty spots and was taking up space on his property. I couldn't afford to fill it with potting soil so I built it up with the rotting logs from my yard and sticks and twigs from my already started scrap pile of downed limbs from 20 years of yard clearing. I 'discovered' already composted material under the brush pile that worms had worked over. This was the last part of fill for the raised bed.
The first year I got a massive amount of winter squash that was introduced by accident when I tossed kitchen scraps into the bed during the previous winter. The second year I covered the pile with potting soil and planted peppers and tomatoes. I had a large crop of both.
Great video, James
💌💌💌💌💌💌💌Love you both, the dynamic garden duo!💌💌💌💌💌💌💌💌
wow - that height of bed would allow me to grow again (I have severe back pain and immobility)
I always enjoy knowing the WHY behind an action. I did this to my raised beds about a month ago. I hope to have great results in the Spring!
Iron Butterfly has a garden
I used this method this past year too. Such a cost saving way to fill a raised bed.
Loved the detail explanation! More please!
Hello Saquoia, How are you doing today, How is the weather over there?
I thought you were going to dig up the logs one year later to see what they were like! I’m very curious and want to dig my own hugelkultur up just to see what’s going on underneath the soil with my own eyes! I guess your beautiful plants kind of tell all, eh? No exhuming required.
me too! I actually have a backyard hugel/bioswale. My plan is to dig up one small section and see what has decomposed and what remains at the 2 year point, next June. I'll definitely grab some video of it when I do.
So far I am happy with it and glad I did it.
The logs will rot down eventually. It just means that you get a lot of use and time out of that bed so its a good thing
Thank you, James. I sure look forward to your videos. I usually spend a month or so in the winter visiting my mom in Arkansas. I have been debating on building her a raised bed when I am there this winter. So this information was super helpful!! Love you and Tuck ❤❤
🙂😊😅Tuck, we love you. Love this channel and have learned so much.
❤❤❤❤❤Tuck is so cute! ❤❤❤❤❤
Tuck is soooo cute!! ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Sepp Holzer is a genius, but as you have said, it is important to understand WHY he does things. Thanks for showing that process.
Love you Tuck! You are such a healthy little guy! Building up your bed with logs and twigs and organic debris is exactly what I did…however when I layered it I did not let the green mulch dry out… so probably it would have been more successful your way. Also I put a layer of paper from empty sturdy fall leaf bags on the bottom…This may have sealed it off a little too much…In the end though, it all eventually breaks down…
Wow! I feel so educated on raised beds! Thank you!
So many appreciate all the teaching from you and Tuck♥♥♥♥♥. It shows in all the subs and 👍.
Love the How-To and the Why in this video.
Thanks. Lovely video as always. ♥ for Tuck.
Hello Verdant, How are you doing today?
Great! I just filled a raised bed with some both thick and thin branches that I had recently pruned from a tree.
I do all of my raised beds like this even the shorter ones as they break down they help the soil hold water here in hot Southern New Mexico.
Smart!
Thank you for the critique of hugelkultur mounds.
I did this recently with similar tall raised beds. I had a bunch of old half rotten maple logs. Weighed a ton. I wish I had grown some edible mushrooms on those logs first or something.
Great editing, high quality video as always
lots of info....thx....we've put branches, rotting wood in the bottoms of our home made from pallets garden boxes about 2-3 feet high...
we also used lots of pine cones since we're in pine tree country....
The chicken stuff did a lot for it. In the past I have used free mulch from our town and our used Christmas trees in the bottom.
♥️♥️♥️🐕🐶
Great information....
Thank you much...
Just about time for me to make my own rise bed. Thanks for the tips