Huglekultur: A Different Type of Berm in the Community Garden

Huglekultur (pronounced Hoogle, like Google) is a German word meaning mound culture or hill culture and has probably been used in German and Eastern European societies for hundreds of years.  In its basic form, mounds are constructed by piling logs, branches, plant waste, compost and additional soil directly on the ground.  The pile usually has the form of a pyramid with sloping sides.  With decomposition the shape changes.

In our Community Garden, when a wind storm came through in late May, our pecan tree was taken down.  In the wake of all the cleanup, the stump and some of the roots were left in place providing an unsightly mess.  Since removal was not a high priority item, we decided to try something different with the stump and debris: Huglekultur.

We piled sticks and branches all around the stump and broke smaller sticks to fill in the cavities.  Then we covered the entire mess with soil, some sand we had left from a project, old straw and compost.  We let that sit for a week or so, kept wetting the mound down, adding more straw and soil as needed.  Then, when we thought the time was just right, we planted pumpkin seeds in the soil and straw, working to get the seeds to stay in place on the sloping sides of the mound.  Now, our unsightly stump is no longer unsightly – the pumpkin seeds are sprouting and pumpkin plants are beginning to grow on its surface.

We are hoping for pumpkins later in the season, but, in the meantime, it looks as if we will have some beautiful pumpkin plants making vines all over our Huglekultur berm.  Some experiments in the Garden (any garden) work and others don’t.  We are hoping this experiment works.  So far, so good.

Drive by and see if you can recognize our new creation.