Hugelkultur in WA? Mallee trees?

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by blackjok3r, Oct 8, 2015.

  1. blackjok3r

    blackjok3r New Member

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    Hi everyone. I have just joined this forum. I have just bought my first family home in the wheatbelt of WA. I have a fairly large yard which can easily grow enough food to sustain us and probably most of my friends.

    I am in the planning process. I inherited my grandpa's chain saw which is quite large although it needs some work I am a mechanic and it will be perfect for my needs. I can get heaps of wood for hugelkultur.

    I am mostly wondering if anyone has had any experience using mallee trees for hugelkultur? The wood is extremely dense and hard and takes an eternity to burn. I was thinking of using large logs of mallee in a trench and then piling on softer woods like eucalyptus type trees or wattles to build the bed on top to make a bed that would last for a long long time.

    Has any one got any ideas? Also the topsoil in my yard is non-existent, it is mostly sand and could possibly have been hit with a lot of Roundup over the years. Would it be a good idea to use the pre existing vegetable garden to manufacture bulk good soil first before building my beds? I was thinking of composting the shit out of it all over this spring/summer and then grow a few vegetables next year.

    We get over 300mm of rain here each year but there can be very long dry spells hence my decision to use huglekulture. I was thinking of building my beds where they will get all the run off water from the property flowing though them before it leaves the property. This area is also facing north with a large tree over it in the maximum afternoon sun.

    Sorry if I am rambling a bit. Its been a long day. Any input people have is welcome. Like I said I am just starting out but I have huge plans. Money is tight for us so I don't want to put in a huge effort to fail and have to start again.
     
  2. Flatland

    Flatland Member

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    I'm no expert but I thought the idea of hugelkutur was that the big wood eventually rots. I can not see mallee ever rotting. I think it would just turn to stone. I'm at Milang SA we have same sandy soil and rainfall about 350mm. I'm going for adding lots of horse manure (I have a horse) and bio char, and heavily mulching. Where I have done it the soil looks wonderful. This is my first year here so can't say it is working but the worms have moved in so that has to be a good sign. My suggestion would be turn the mallee wood into bio char if you can or just burn it and get the charcoal and ash. Even without all the fancy bio char burning you will get a fair bit of charcoal
     
  3. blackjok3r

    blackjok3r New Member

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    So malle won't rot hey not even after a long time? No worries. Thanks for letting me know that. I'll look into other woods I have available and see if I can get them to rot.
     
  4. Bryant RedHawk

    Bryant RedHawk Junior Member

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    Are there any trees around that have fungi growing on them? if so those are most likely what would work best for starting the breakdown of the malle trees. Just make a slurry of the mushrooms with water and pour onto the piled up wood. I make my growing mounds by using this method, turns out that most of these fungi work as mycorrhizal fungi once the soil goes on as the cap. Give a try on a small mound to see if this method will work with the malle tree wood. It may be that if you could chip up the wood that it would react differently than an intact trunk also. Just a few things to experiment with.
     
  5. blackjok3r

    blackjok3r New Member

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    Thanks for the tip but to my huge surprise have found another guy with a permaculture system in town to and we have decided not to use huglekultr because of termites. My house was built in the 1930's and is almost all wood and has already had to have a termite treatment done before I moved in. We finally got some decent rain today so I have been able to observe where all my water goes. I will be able to capture a lot as my house is in a valley and I have a large amount of roof area with no guttering or gutters simply tipping water all over the ground. My system is going to be quite good as the plan is looking right now. The only thing will be keeping the birds off my fruit as there are almost plague proportions of pink and greys and other huge flocks of large birds.
     

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