Texas Gardening: Lessons learned while gardening in a drought..., 1 by podster

podster wrote:
Hugelkultur bed
Hugelkultur beds are one of the experiments I've done. I think it will be worthwhile to build more of these beds. I was pleased with the results.

The first bed I built in spring. I dug down to the clay probably 8 inches deep. I added a good bit of rotting hardwood which I saturated with water. Then, filled in the bed with the dirt and compost and mulched with pinestraw. As I live in the woods both rotting wood and pinestraw are plentiful.

I planted seven tomatoes, basil and Malabar spinach in this bed which was 2' x 8'. I only watered it when I fertilized to water the fertilizer in. It never received any other water from me.

The tomatoes grew to four feet tall and delivered a good amount of fruit. They were in full afternoon sun. This photo was taken in May.