Homesteading Middles: The Art of Hugelkultur

One of my favorite nuggets from when I did the Permaculture Design Course was learning about hill mounds, or hugelkultur. Hugelkultur is a glorious construction of organic matter with soil atop. Organic matter like logs, branches, straw, upside-down turf, leaves, cardboard, shredded newspaper - if it can decay on it goes. Once the decaying matter of the hugel has enough nitrogen to start decomposing the hugelkultur works as a sink for moisture, nutrients, and carbon.

We built our raised beds over the large stumps from when we cleared the land for the house. I envision the vegetables fed by grandfather trees - and in turn, feeding our bellies.

I had not considered creating a hugelkultur for aesthetic purposes until faced with a pile of rotting logs. They were from diseased trees. Often diseased trees are rotting even though they are upright. It is only once they are cut down that one sees the evidence of decay - ant burrows, mushroom threads, and grub activity under the bark. Diseased logs cannot be used for firewood.

We already had our hugelkultur raised beds for vegetables, what to do with this extra pile?

As I have mentioned to my children, sometimes inspiration can take a while - but then BOOM! The path is clear.

Our driveway turns off the road and it is the last part of our land that we have thought of in terms of plantings - solidly in zone 4 from a permaculture perspective.

There lay the logs.

Too heavy to move.

Sitting there.

For a year.

For another year.

Then, BOOM!

The Hugelkultur as art installation - installation is born. (That makes total sense, just go with it.)

We added a small amount of soil last summer, planted bulbs in the fall, and this spring up popped lilies, daffodils, hosta, irises, and lenten roses.

Then three things happened in the same week. I noticed the soil was dry over the logs threatening the survival of the baby plants. Weeds were finding the soil. We had a pile of bark from a week of splitting logs.

BOOM!

The art installation becomes more art than installation. I layer bark over the dry soil and place leaves in spaces where it feels too contrived. It rains and the plants are protected from weeds and drought.

Here is what I would write as the blurb if one ran across this installation in an art museum.

Corinna’s work focuses on the intersectionality and the interplay between decay and emergence. The juxtaposition of the coarse with the ethereal and ephemeral challenges the viewer to reevaluate conventional beauty, death, and life.

BOOM!

What fun it is, this life.