Paul Wheaton on Hugelkultur and more
Bill Taylor interviewed permaculturist Paul Wheaton, who briefly discussed rocket mass heaters and then focused the rest of the hour on mound culture - using wood covered with soil to create a low or no irrigation raised bed. The recommended height for no irrigation is 6 feet, and larger wood is better than twigs or branches for longevity. Here is the link:
The more surface area of wood (twigs, branches, chips), the more nitrogen gets locked up decomposing it. That is why most You Tube videos show large logs being used. Paul mentioned that the sides are best steep to create microclimates, and also to make it lumpy rather than homogeneous: blobs of compost, manure, grass, leaves, sods, etc. This way there will be more diverse micro-environments in the hugelbed.
My original motivation for covering this in so much detail is that many in our area make burn piles and this could be an alternative. Since we tend to use the big wood in our heaters, the hugelbeds would get the N-hungry branches. Adding more N in the form of manures may help, OR we can build rocket mass heaters, use 10% of the wood and use the small wood, and put the big logs in the hugelbed.
Links to Paul Wheaton's site: www.permies.com
The site has a wealth of information; it is the biggest permaculture on-line community. Have fun!