An experiment in Hugelkulture in containers

[Mick Emery]

It seems that this thread is about how you're gardening... & how you're gardening wrong in your garden. lol!

 

[Meadowlark]

I'll really be watching the carrots here. If your bed fill is anything like mine you'll get some crazy modern art sculptures the first few years as the roots fork around sticks and the like.

Results on the carrots portion of the experiment are in: No crazy modern art sculptures resulted in the HK carrot tub.

However, the in-ground carrots planted for comparison germinated poorly (this was back in Aug. which isn't a great time to germinate carrots here except the HK tub germinated just fine), what did germinate in-ground were difficult to pull and somewhat irregular shaped (see those on the left in the below photo).

The HK tub carrots were surprisingly uniform in length of about 8-10 inches and in shape. These were planted and harvested early for this area compared to my normal start dates in Oct and harvest in Feb/March. They could have been allowed to grow more but this size is what I prefer for fresh eating.

These results are surprising to me as most of the other root veggies, e.g. turnips, beets, radishes, etc. have not shown such positive results in HK containers.

I certainly will not be afraid to raise carrots again in the future in these tubs with these results.

By way of addressing Mr. Yan's comments, these tubs are constructed 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 with the top layer of garden soil at 6-7 inches, then well composted utility mulch at another 6-7 inches and then the rotted/decaying wood below. That gives something like 12-14 inches before the carrot roots encounter anything of any size in wood particles. Seems to work.

 

[skinyea]

only bad thing that HK brought and it might just be coincidence. but I got bees nests in 5 of the HK tubs. strange

 

[Meadowlark]

Grand Summary:

Across 38 different vegetables planted in HK containers and duplicated in ground planting, across spring /summer/fall/early winter 2022, a total of 3077 ounces of produce (87,231 grams) was harvested from the HK containers and 1990 ounces (56415 grams) harvested from identical in ground planted veggies. There were no, zero, nada veggies that failed to meet the targeted goal of equal to or greater production ratio of .5.

The production ratio across the entire experiment was 1.6.



Details by vegetable type are shown below for the fall/winter veggies, some of which are still in progress.

Comments/questions welcome. This experiment is concluded.

Summary	Leafly Veggie Fall/Winter	HK Pro	Gar Pro	Pro Ratio
1​	Malabar spinach 8-8	16.2​	4.1​	3.95​
2​	Spinach 10-20	7.5​	7.1​	1.05
3​	Kale 10-18	10.4​	9.6​	1.08
4​	collards 9-2	8.1​	5.7​	1.42​
5​	Swiss Chard 8-20	4.8​	2.5​	1.92​
6​	Turnips 8-21 tops	78​	54​	1.44​
7​	Bok Choy 8-20	45.3​	22​	2.06​
8​	ButterCrunch lettuce 8-21	37.4​	15.2​	2.46​
9​	Sylyestra lettuce 8-21	33.4​	13.3​	2.51​
10​	Little gem lettuce 8-22	31.9​	12.8​	2.49​
11​	Romain lettuce 8-22	6.8​	3.2​	2.13​
12​	iceberg 10-20	frozen		#VALUE!​
	sub-Total	279.8​	149.5​	1.87​
Summary	Root Veggies Fall/Winter	HK Pro	Gar Pro	Pro Ratio
1​	turnips bottom	44​	83​	0.53​
2​	Radish 8-22	13.5​	12.1​	1.12​
3​	Carrot 8-21	32.1​	5.7​	5.63​
4​	Parsnip 10-2	in prog	in prog	#VALUE!​
5​	Parsley 10-10	in prog	in prog	#VALUE!​
6​	sprouted onion 10-9	19.5​	20.1​	0.97​
7​	leeks 10-17	in prog	in prog
8​	garlic 10-1	in prog	in prog	#VALUE!​
9​	beets 9-14	in prog	in prog	#VALUE!​
10​	leeks 10-17	5.1​	5.3​	0.96​
11​	Sweet potatoes 8- 16	frozen	frozen
12​	Yukon gold 10-15	frozen	frozen
	sub-Total	114.2​	126.2​	0.90​
Summary	Brassicas	HK Pro	Gar Pro	Pro ratio
1​	red cabbage 10-18	in prog	in prog
2​	Aspabroc(brocolinni) 9 26	12.5​	8.1​	1.54​
3​	Broccoli 8-20	36.5​	22.5​	1.62​
4​	Cauliflower 8-26	113​	60​	1.88​
5​	Brussels Sprouts 8-26	in prog	in prog	#VALUE!​
	sub-Total	162​	90.6​	1.79​
Summary	Other
1​	Sugar snap peas 8-8	frozen	frozen
2​	Toad pumpkin 8-21	49​	12​	4.08​
	sub-total	49​	12​	2.68​
Grand Tot	Leafly Veggie Fall/Winter (12) sub-total	409.5​	197.1​	2.08​
	Root Veggies Fall/Winter (12) sub-total	373​	174.6​	2.14​
	Brassicas (5) sub-total	782.5​	371.7​	2.11​
	other fall (2) subtotal	782.5​	371.7​	0.30​
	other spring (7) sub-total	729.70​	874.60​	0.83​
	Grand Total (38)	3077.20​	1989.7​	1.55​

 

[Meadowlark]

What happens to the soil in these containers as crops are harvested?

To answer that key question, I ran "before" and "after" soil tests on the container soil after three crops...a spring, a fall, and a spring which in all cases was a potato.

Here are the results:

Element	% Reduction
Total Nitrogen	91​
Nitrate	84​
Ammonium	94​
Phosphorus	29​
Potassium	94​
Magnesium	60​
Iron	93​
Manganese	63​

The starting point for the soil in the containers was my garden soil which was tested at "No N-P-K required". After three crops, the last of which was potato, that soil was depleted almost completely of key nutrients required to grow another crop. Imagine growing another potato crop in the same container. It would be a complete failure.

Crop rotation and soil replenishment are absolutely essential on these containers. Some claim that crop rotation and soil replenishment are "big farm" techniques and not applicable to small space gardening and container gardening. They are absolutely wrong.

To reset these containers is a relatively simple task...remove the top layer of soil and replace it with my garden soil "No N-P-K required."

Throwing synthetic N-P-K fertilizers at the container soil is not a viable solution, IMO, but replacing it with proven garden soil which is readily available is an easy task and completely restores the container to full optimal production capacity.

p.s. Important addition: The nutrient density score for the original container soil fell from 94% to 51% after the three crops. Throwing N-P-K at it will not improve that nutrient density score.

 

[Mr_Yan]

The starting point for the soil in the containers was my garden soil which was tested at "No N-P-K required". After three crops, the last of which was potato, that soil was depleted almost completely of key nutrients required to grow another crop. Imagine growing another potato crop in the same container. It would be a complete failure.

Crop rotation and soil replenishment are absolutely essential on these containers. Some claim that crop rotation and soil replenishment are "big farm" techniques and not applicable to small space gardening and container gardening. They are absolutely wrong.

hmmm

Do you have a feeling for whether the total depletion is related to this being a small container having 3 crops run through it or if there is a basic limitation due to the wood-core / HK fill method?

My complete WAG on this is the depletion is mostly due to it being a container and having been heavily cropped in one year.

While I have been filling containers and beds with this method for years I have never run soil tests or left a bed alone for more than a few seasons. Not leaving things alone is mainly me wanting to constantly wanting to tinker and rebuild rather than observing a need to replenish.

 

[Meadowlark]

I don't believe it is a basic limitation due to HK container.

hmmm

My complete WAG on this is the depletion is mostly due to it being a container and having been heavily cropped in one year.
...

No, the very same depletion happens in the limited test area also. Potatoes are very heavy feeders. Without soil replenishment (in either the container or in-garden test plot), all follow-on crops will suffer big time. I guess I could demonstrate by planting another potato crop in one of the containers without replenishment...but it would be a disaster.

The need for soil replenishment is very real...regardless of the size of the growing area. Rotation is also critical especially on crops like potatoes which suck almost every nutrient out of the soil.

Did you see what it did to Iron, Manganese and Magnesium levels let alone N-P-K?

 

[YumYum]

Did you see what it did to Iron, Manganese and Magnesium levels let alone N-P-K?

It went into the tater skin.

I love potato skins.

 

[Mr_Yan]

Spuds being a heavy feeder sucking everything from the soil eh? Well that plays into my plan without being the reason for the original plan.

I was thinking potatoes would be a good last crop to run in my wood-core beds in a rotation. The idea was when digging them out would be a perfect time to rebuild the container fill as I had been digging it anyway. I am treating the soil nicely and not just cropping it hard - scavenger radish cover crop, mulch, adding veri-compost when planting into it, and this year I plan on learning about compost teas and other natural fertilizers.

My "containers" are 96 inches x 32 inches and between ankle and knee high but open to native soil at the bottom.

 

[skinyea]

This year did the 8 HK containers from last year. I took 4 of them emptied and put 50 wood pieces and 50% hay in the bottom. covered with same sol.
I am watering the hay containers about 50% less.

 

[Meadowlark]

Looks like the rest of the Garden World is finally catching on to the Hügelkultur container method we "pioneered" here:

MSN

 

[DirtMechanic]

Looks like the rest of the Garden World is finally catching on to the Hügelkultur container method we "pioneered" here:

MSN

You laid it out by the numbers. I will testify at your trial.

 

[Mr_Yan]

Few random thoughts:

I did this because it seemed lazy and cheap at the time.

Wasn't something like this called Lasagna Gardening in the '90s?

This is a great way to fill containers and raised beds but if someone really reads up on HK methods they'll ready about Sepp Holzer and get the idea for full size swalles. As @DirtMechanic said, and I've heard about in a few cases, full size swalles on contour can be deadly dangerous.

And 9 pages was worth getting that Marck guy out of here.

 

[Meadowlark]

...
And 9 pages was worth getting that Marck guy out of here.

LOL, going back and reading his posts on this thread...and knowing what I know today...he was incredibly wrong.

 

[skinyea]

I completely forgot about marck until you mentioned him. funny how you can get things like that out of your memory banks