Hugelculture comes from the Permaculture school of thought where you make the best use of land, efficiently and sustainable, living lightly on the planet, in harmony with nature. A Hugelculture is made by starting with digging a pit and placing a log in it, then smaller branches and then twigs, this is covered by upside down turf and then soil, so that the whole structure is an elongated mound. We made ours 1 ½  metre long, 1 metre high, and  0.8 metre wide., but they can be made any size. The idea is to make use of vertical space and to preserve moisture. 

Filling gaps with turf and soil

Planting up with strawberries peas and beans

Hugelculture bed semi – established with, peas, nasturtium, strawberries and the addition of self seeded borage and nigella. Broad beans have also been planted but have not come up yet. Having made the bed in  April then the long hot weather spell in May dried it out a bit whereas when really underway the idea of the Hugel is that it keeps moist and fed by the gradual breakdown of the internal wood. Initially it is best to sow nitrogen fixing plants to replace any taken by the breakdown of the wood, but by next year we can grow any plants we wish