Hugelkultur mistakes

This article is about the hugelkultur mistakes I have made, and the mistakes I’ve read that others have done. Hopefully, we will learn something to learn from this.

This post will probably be updated a few times with new mistakes.
My hands-on Hugelkulture journey started in the fall of 2018, so I haven’t made too many mistakes that I’m aware of just yet.

Goat Willow log mistake

Weed in my wood-chip covered hugelkultur bed?

I spotted something growing in my wood-chip-covered raised hugelkultur bed and was a bit sad that this would happen. Still, when I started carefully digging around the “weed” I discovered it was part of one of the old logs, Goat willow (Salix caprea), I had put in the raised bed.

There were more growth all along the log…

When I carefully dug it out, I noticed it had many leaves and new branches forming well on its way. These were not there when I made it in last fall. Further, the log wasn’t newly cut down either. It was at least a year, if not more, older. It had been partly covered with lots of natural mulch and in shade, this might have had something to do with how it managed to stay alive until this happened.

Goat willows are known to be very easy to start from branches, they will often do that when it’s not intended by the person that cut down the branch.
My lesson from this is that if I ever use Goat willow in my hugelkultur beds I will make sure they actually are dead, or dig them deeply, and not use them near the top in a raised bed as I did here.

There is currently no ebook from this article as it’s obviously too short, but when the article has been expanded in the future I will make one.

If you have made a mistake others can learn from and that you wish to let others learn from then get in touch and tell me about it 🙂
kenneth@hugelkulturworks.com