Hugelkultur

Hugelkultur, German for hill culture, is a way to put yard waste nutrients to good use by building a garden bed with them. As the woody ingredients decay, they provide nutrients to the garden plants. The heat from the composting ingredients can extend the growing season for the plants. Another advantage is that the woody material in the mound absorbs water and stores it. This will cut back on watering needs. Burying wood also sequesters carbon in the soil where it will feed plants rather than increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

At Hugelkultur: What It Is & Inspiration For Your Permaculture Garden, there are good ideas for creating a Hugel raised bed along with photos of examples. Here is one photo from that site:

At Hügelkultur: A Step-by-Step Guide For The Ultimate Raised Garden Bed, there is a good step-by-step plan:

1. Dig a shallow trench the size of the base of the garden. Save the soil to put on top as the final layer of the hill.

2. Put the larger pieces of wood in the bottom layer. Cut the wood if necessary to provide openings for plant roots, water, and aeration.

3. Fill in the spaces with compost, mulch, leaves, smaller branches and twigs, shaping the mound as you go. This looks like it is mostly wood and leaves, but there is a lot of mulch (ground up yard waste from our local Leaf and Limb dropoff) and soil mixed in.

4. Put soil and mulch on as the final layer.

5. Ready for planting! When our neighbors walk by and ask what that is, we say, "we had to bury the bodies." Then we explain what hugelkultur is.