Community Garden Scholar

This month's Monadnock Earth Journal : This year I’m planting a hugelkultur bed. I know, I’d never heard of it, either. Turns out this agricultural technique has been practiced in Eastern Europe for centuries, though I just learned about it this year, thanks to YouTube. It means “hill culture” or “mound culture” in German, and although it can be used to grow any kind of plant in any part of the world, it seems to really be taking off among backyard vegetable gardeners in North America and Australia, along with other techniques of permaculture. This is an area I’ve been trying to learn more about, since I’m interested in connecting with the Earth, eating real food, and seeing how much money I can save on nourishing my family. So, I figured I would give hugelkultur a try, especially since my yard is mostly one big hill, and also since I’d run out of scrap wood to make raised beds and this technique would not require any purchase of new materials. The idea is, by layering organic mate...