What Happens When You Bury Logs & Bug Shells in a Raised Garden Bed?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 มิ.ย. 2024
- In this video, I dig up logs that were buried in a raised garden bed for over 6 years and I also see what happened to Moreton Bay bug shells after being buried for 3 months in the same garden bed.
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Self Sufficient Me is based on our small 3-acre property/homestead in SE Queensland, Australia, about 45kms north of Brisbane - the climate is subtropical (similar to Florida). I started Self Sufficient Me in 2011 as a blog website project where I document and write about backyard food growing, self-sufficiency, and urban farming in general. I love sharing my foodie and DIY adventures online, so come along with me and let's get into it! Cheers, Mark :)
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#gardening #hugelkultur #garden - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
Hard to believe I've been watching this channel for 6 years now. Provide I'm able to stick around and you keep making the vids, I'll still be watching in another 6.
Same. I started watching before the pandemic and his videos brought a lot of relief of cabin fever!
+
Same here. I love Mark's channel
I was thinking the same thing lol
I hope you are practicing what you have seen and learned on in all these videos. Happy gardening. 😊
Hubby was an oyster farmer for approximately ten years so our property is covered with shells that are still there 22 years later…a little rough around the edges, but I’m positive they’re constantly weathering away nutrients, lime and calcium into our soils! 😅
Hubby goes fishing once a week and all scraps are buried in our vege patch!
💫R.I.P. fishies🫶
…and thanx for everything! 💕💫
Your little farm never stops impressing me sir. This Florida girl is super jealous of that beautiful dirt too❤️
Only time I've ever seen dirt that good is this strip of land in Ohio Just south of the ancient glacial ridge we had a house there and I remember diggin a tree out, I had to be about 6 foot in the ground and it was still RICH black soil
Yeah I grew up in South Dakota so I'm used to excellent rich soil. Florida is all sand, coral & limestone. This isn't land, it's a big anthill humans built on🤦♀️
Agreement from Sarasota!
If you're near the ocean or the Gulf, use seaweed to amend your soil.
Orlando here. I have pretty good soil but only because my dad killed out the grass 50 years ago and refused to take leaves. My soil is like forest floor . Never chemicals put on it. I just keep adding tree chips from companies and can grow pretty well anything right in the ground. Compost piles finish so fast here its almost a crime if you don't have one unless you don't have a yard. Chickens help tho lol
that pup is too cute and loves you to bits!!
Thank you so much for taking your time to make these videos. You've helped me here in Texas I'm harvesting enough I'm able to share with my elderly neighbors!❤
Do you have corrugated raised beds in Texas like his?
@@Rob1066- not as tall but I did the self wicking beds like the live show a while back and they are amazing
@@ReynoldsinTexas self wicking beds would be good in a dry state like TX.
I'm down in Galveston, my garden has produced so good this year thanks to some of Mark's advice. I'm having to freeze dry all my extra
I appreciate your support! Sharing your homegrown produce is always special, but I think it's extra rewarding to give it to someone who really benefits by saving money and eating healthy like your elderly neighbours. All the best :)
It’s a little sad how excited I was to see you had a new video out! You have stoked my love of gardening for the last 4 years and I’m very appreciative!
G'day Christine, I'm glad you caught the "gardening bug," and it's good feedback to know that you look forward to my videos-there's no better compliment than that! Thank you :)
That's not sad, that's wonderful. Self Sufficient Me is a great channel and you love it and love gardening. There's nothing wrong with that and everything right about it.
Always look forwar to your videos. I check daily for them.
It is facilitating how the logs have broken down over time and the water wicking bonuses
I'm very impressed with what has happened to those logs and branches. But what impresses me more is the condition of those metal raised beds after six years! No better testament to the company who made these metal raised beds that this.
Agree but the inside was wll firmed up by the logs and then slowly broken down but hell yeh great product
Mark, most of the logs and log-pieces I buried in my raised beds were already "punky" or spongy, as they'd laid out in the back yard from when the previous owner of my house cut the tree down about 10 years ago. I've found that spongy quality has indeed kept the moisture in the beds, but the material is also deteriorating faster than yours, because mine had already started to break down before it was used. I'm already giving away tomatoes from just two plants, and I've kept count of the number of fruit on each plant. One has 51, and the other has 39, so far. Both still blooming. And the one bell pepper plant I have in that bed has produced 11 peppers, with 6 still on the plant, and at least a dozen blooms. Lawn clippings, raked up leaves, and leftover wheat straw has given me a fairly rich compost to work with, although not in the quantities I would like. The Hugelkultur approach works, and in raised beds has cut down the amount of maintenance work to almost nothing. I haven't had a weed to pull since March. It's a fantastic method.
Wow, what great results! That's a good idea to keep count of the fruit to determine productivity. Yes, it's obvious, but it isn't a measure I do very often throughout a season per plant. 11 bell peppers... Now that's pushing the limits! Composting has always been a limitation for me also (as it is for most gardeners) we all would love to make more. But yeah, hugelkultur certainly is a fantastic method of gardening. Cheers :)
6 to 7 years later, still giving back all the goodness via hugelkultur ! Excellent video Mark
Uuuuhhhhh a cliffhanger!! Can’t wait to see the next video. Very good information in this video. To see the remaining ingredients after so many years was incredible. Thanks for sharing!
Farming that respects that life is a cycle is where we need to get back to.
Love the videos showing insights into that.
Im finding similar results in my bordies beds mate. I think though its more expedited here in Wales because we are so much wetter than you as an area. but having the logs hold that moisture and wicking it back into the soil and plant roots pushing down searching for it makes for great sturdy and healthy plants. Great video Mark
G'day Tony, I reckon your cooler and wetter climate there in the UK would help to soften those logs faster than here for sure. Cheers mate :)
This broken down wood is amazing stuff! In my woods, when an old tree falls, I come in about 3 years later to harvest half of this spongewood and dust. It is full of fungi and other life that becomes a great kick starter when I plant trees. All new plantings get a thick ring around them composed of this old wood and lots of leaf mold. Mimicking the biology of woodlands for new trees makes them very strong and resilient.
Mark, I have been watching you gardening in raised beds for several years and this winter I finally was able to get a few for myself. I’d always grown a large garden in the ground but last year the weeds took over and I just gave in to them. I added 11 raised beds of various sizes this year and love them. In every single one of them I covered the bottom with large logs and sticks and then topped with compost and garden soil and my plants are absolutely thriving this year. I also put them on a weed barrier fabric so I don’t have to worry about the weeds growing up through them. I raise red wiggler compost worms so I added a handful teach bed when I set them up and they’re helping further break down the organic soils I added to each bed. In your honor I also located some chopped straw and mulched some beds, we don’t have sugarcane mulch readily available in California. Thanks for the many years of great and inspirational gardening content.
G'day Jared, and congrats on your new raised beds, mate! It sounds like you've put a lot of thought into setting them up with the hugelkultur method and the weed barrier, which not only helps to stop weeds but can also prevent the roots of large trees from invading the base of the raised garden bed and robbing it of water and nutrients. It's good to hear that you're mulching, too! Thank you and all the best :)
Fascinating experiment, Mark!
Fascinating. It's so beautiful how this wonderful planet recycles itself.
This reminded me of something Carl Sagan had said many years ago what should be done about leftover wood products from manufacturing, He simply said "Bury it"
Love this follow up videos, especially that you added pictures from the start.
I have a few beds with logs in the bottom, and i notice that they keep moist longer, requiring watering more seldom compared to other beds.
Good to know that the logs dont need to be replaced until atleast 6 years... i enjoy the water holding part of it.
Another great video Mark! Really interesting how the wood is like a sponge. I'm looking foward to reading your book! 📖 🌱🌱
PS, I'm 17 and live in the Perth Hills.
🙂👍
Thank you! Yes, I'm working on my first book (one of several, I hope), and I'm quite enjoying writing it. I appreciate your support, and it's great to see younger people like you getting into gardening! Cheers :)
I'll never waste another crab shell! Wouldn't have thought to bury those for fertilizer, clever!
Yes, and I hope you're putting in your egg shells, as well!
@@chezmoi42 better to feed them back to the birds.
@@CmdrSoCal Um, some of us don't raise chickens...
Would adding egg shells to the bird feeder help songbirds too? Should I do year-round or just during mating season as I assume it's for extra calcium?
I'm in Canberra, and while we have different climates, I really enjoy your videos. I think there's something everyone can enjoy. 👍👍And I always leave a big, THUMBS UP
I've been trying this raised method since I have plenty of logs!
The chitin from the shells is amazing for pest and disease resistance. Pot growers are obsessed with the stuff😂 (legal here)
I’m moving to the country next month and will absolutely be filling my raised beds with logs, balcony gardening in the city just doesn’t cut it.
All the best with your move! Cheers :)
I think I remember watching the vid when you buried the logs. Geez, time flies.
Same, seems like yesterday.
Time is going too fast! I thought retiring from the Army to spend more time with family and gardening would "slow life down a little," but I was wrong... Hahaha :)
Wow! Now I have an idea of what is at the bottom of my raised bed and I didn’t even have to dig them up! Lol
Thanks for sharing this info. I truly appreciate it ❤
I remember as a child in the late 60's and early 70's we used to go smelt fishing every spring and all the guts were put in the garden along with wood ash and fertilizer from a local dairy farm. Always had huge crops. (Had to use wood ash or lime to grow anything because of acidity.)
Would you mind making a fruit tree playlist and also consider making new fruit tree videos with info about how your trees are doing and anything else that you learned? Your videos are so valuable and we love your sense of humor!! Thanks so much!!
G'day Eliza, and thanks for the feedback. A fruit tree playlist is a good idea, so I will start working on that. Yes, I really should be doing more fruit tree videos. I tend to focus on the veggie garden since this is always changing, but I agree that we have over 140 fruit trees that should be getting more attention. Cheers :)
berry bushes are better. trees have a lot of problems. raspberries and strawberries are the best. goose berries have been great for me so far.
@@Selfsufficientmeif you can believe it, I have over 75 fruit trees on our tiny Florida property (less than a quarter acre). Grumichama, jaboticaba, pitomba, sapodilla, pitangatuba, banana. They are all still babies, except for the banana, but I’ve used your videos a lot in my research. Thanks so much!!
@@CmdrSoCalI have four Peruvian golden cherry bushes that I have high hopes for! Have you tried those?
Fantastic video. I have plenty of logs but no raised bed because they are very expensive. Wondering what else I can use to make a cheaper version of raised beds.
I'm so inspired...thinking to throw together some redneck raised beds out of old lumber/pallets. They won't be pretty or last years & years, but time's a-wasting! ☮️
Find a garage door company. (The big door type). Call them and see if they have any they have replaced. They generally take the old ones back for disposal. When replaced by a new one. A two car garage door is 16’. There’s 4 panels to each door. So you can make the bed as long and as wide as you want. Most places are happy to get rid of them. You just have to find a way, or have a trailer to pick them up. I had this idea myself. And thought surely someone else must of thought of this as well. So I looked it up on the tube here. And sure enough, there are vids on it. Florida panels are really . reinforced. Because of hurricaines. They are very structurely solid. Free resources! Look up some vids on it. Great idea! And they are metal. prime and paint em. They will last forever. Best wishes.
1:19 Very interesting video. The dog jumping up to the beds.....😂 very cute
Very interesting to see how much buried organic matter have broken down. The wood rotting from the inside out is very interesting. I even buried logs in big containers and even then they deteriorate very quickly. I also add black volcanic cinder for aeration and drainage. Works amazing here since rain is very often. Been watching your channel for years now and never get tired or bored. You aways deliver great content full of amazing stuff. Learned alot from you. Much live and Aloha from Hawaii my braddah!!🤙🏼🙏🏼❤️
Thank you and Aloha Braddah! Yes, I guess you would have easy access to volcanic products, which are all amazing for the garden. All the best :)
Ive been rinsing and saving my eggshells, then using my coffee grinder to grind the shells to a powder and adding that to my planter beds . My tomatoes instantly started thriving . i added some to my cucumbers and they exploded with growth. now my cucumbers are blooming while my tomatoes have yet to flower. we got a late start on growing this year due to the late frost and freezing rain. growing didnt start until late may.
nonfat powdered milk is another great way to give tomatoes and other calcium lovers a quick boost.
it also has the added benefit of controlling aphids.
When we have poached eggs I wait until the pan has cooled and tip that onto my carrots for a bit of a boost.
To be brutally honest I stopped watching you for a bit because it felt more like ads than information but this video has brought me back. I look forward to seeing the fixed bed and what's new.
Fascinating!! Definitely fun to see what's under the soil
Interesting that explains why my newer bed stays much moister than the others. I added small logs twigs and leaf matter in the bottom of the bed when I made it 3 seasons ago. Proof in the concept right there.
Where I live it's primarily fungus that breaks down wood, especially hardwoods. If your bed was over here, I'd say you have a fungus deficiency - the mycelium should be all over those wood pieces. If you want more, you could add a layer of moldy wood chips from your pile next time you start a bed.
Great tip thank you! Cheers :)
Fabulous! Thanks for showing us the ‘process’…it’s one thing to know what can be done with this hugelkultur…but to see that it actually works is fascinating. Just like in the forest…circle of life
There's a fungus among us.
LOL...
Neat, your original video inspired me to dig down and use a bunch of logs under my garden.
I've had years of good results, thanks for the update.
Stoping this now to go find that fishing channel!! 🏃🏻♀️ 🏃🏻♀️ 🏃🏻♀️
Update: I’m back! Self Suffishing Me 🎣 looks great, can’t wait to binge that content 😁
LOL... Thank you! You'll see that I'm very much a learner in boating and deep-sea fishing, but hopefully, you'll find our fishing channel entertaining! Cheers :)
@@Selfsufficientmeoh, I am hooked 🎣 😉
Just want to say that your garden adventures are very therapeutic to watch and it inspired me to take care of some plants in my tiny patio! Thank you so much for your content!
Thanks for sharing this. I just prepped a bed in May using this method. I could not have filled it quickly otherwise, and I look forward to working with it in the future.
I very much enjoyed this video, thank you Mark. Always appreciate when you do these follow-up type posts.
I always thought Australia had more creepy crawlies. I'm surprised how brave you are with your bare hands in decaying wood.
I was shocked at how much water you were squeezing out of the decaying wood. Thanks so much for showing that. I've never seen anyone else share that visual of how much moisture buried logs will hold.
he lives in the jungle
Such lovely soil you have - ultra low clay, coarse sand seems to be largest rock size, plenty of organics. Do you have any crops that *don't* flourish?
He'd have trouble with hard winter wheat, or rye, but... other than that, I think he's got most people beat!
Yes, I sometimes do have crop failures. It's usually because I stuffed up by growing at the wrong time or tried a wild experiment that didn't work as I expected. Cheers :)
Several years ago I inherited some bulk crushed oyster shell from an egg farm that was shutting down. I dug it into the raised beds to provide calcium to the soil, not knowing how long they would last in the soil. Over the years the shell have all broken down so much that it is nearly impossible to find any trace of it. I'm sure the microbes and worms had fun feasting on the shell pieces. 😀
oyster shell could be loaded with pollutants.
I'm absolutely amazed at how much moisture is in the wood after 6 yrs of being buried. I did the hugelkultur thing with my raised beds as well so I'm really quite pleased to see the effects it's had on your beds Mark. So fascinating !!!
G'day Mike, well, I'm glad to hear that there are other people (besides myself) who are fascinated by the moisture in those logs! I feel like a little kid sometimes burying my hands in the soil and squeezing things lol... All the best :)
The 2 raised metal beds I made using logs from a tree cut down in our yard are in their second year and growing strawberries great. We had record rainfall this spring and none of them drowned and they are still happy through this recent dry spell. Thank you for all your videos all these years! Using wood is such a great way to get beneficial fungi and bacteria in your beds. And something interesting I noticed. The one strawberry plant I allowed to fruit first (the rest I’m trimming buds off to let the roots grow better) was sour at first. But once the roots had grown from it’s pot soil I planted it with, into the year old hugelculture bed soil it started producing very sweet fruit!
Seeing how much water you can squeeze out is incredible!
I put logs in my bed shortly after you made the original video. I wonder if my wood has broken down? We don’t remove soil, but we have added lots as the bed sinks- presumably because the wood is breaking down
Thank you so much Mark👍Keep it up mate!
This video about hugelculture practice in raised beds is so informative! Thank you for showing the biome inside your planting beds. Impressive.
Good morning! Wow!!! Impressive Mark!
Watching from Texas. Love your videos!
I love the hugelkultur videos like this.
I am really happy to watch your vedios, my gardening is improved with your suggestions, big thank you
I was there 6 years ago!! I remember when you fixed the soil
Always love your videos mark.
Great timing! We're building our raised beds soon and this is how we'll be filling it... hugel culture, with fall from our forrest. Nice to know it will work as expected. Thanks for your work
Hi Mark, I watched the construction of that bed, I can't believe its been 6 years, and I've loved every minute of your channel, its what inspired me to get a raised garden bed instead of weeding the ground garden, I live by myself so 1 bed is sufficient, cheers!!🥰👍👍🙏
I love watching your videos it always brightens my day ❤
We have 6 raised beds ( 2 are Birdie’s) and 2 long hugel mounds. Each of the raised beds are 2/3 filled with logs and other organic garden waste like yours. Like you, I love to dig down and see the life in the beds and how it’s feeding and giving water to the beds, and then providing us with so much food. Thanks for sharing how well this works for all your viewers. 👍👍👍
Hello from Canada, I love your enthusiasm for your content. Thank you for sharing.
I find it so funny that I was sitting down planning my day tomorrow of filling up my newest free bath and how I have waited for a few good days so I can go out and trim my bushes and also mow my lawn so I can fill it the best way I know how.
😂😂
Thank you for making another great video.
This episode was JUST GREAT, I learnt heaps, thank you
That's so interesting. Because of you I started gardening 4 years ago, in metal raised beds filled with wood. And keeping quails, although now I keep chickens, because quails don't live very long. I burried them in the raised beds, by the way. Thanks a lot for teaching me so much.
It is fascinating! Thanks for the time capsule video. Love the Cavoodle too, she's a great addition.
So fascinating! Thank you for getting into it and teaching us all so much through your experiments! So helpful and inspiring 👍👍
3:04 omg soooo cute and chubby 🪱🥰 … IT IS BEYOND FASCINATING ‼️‼️‼️
G'day Mark. A big thumbs up. I followed your procedure but only installed our metal raised beds last year. Can't wait to check mine after this growing season. My logs were not that huge maybe 6 inches or so. Lots of limbs, pine cones, pecan hulls, then a layer of manure. Topped with garden soil. My tomatoes are massive this year. Bell peppers did well and the okra is just starting to produce. The only one the d**n rabbit left. Ate the tops off the entire row. Second crop is only about 8 inches tall. But with this 100 degree Texas weather they are loving it. I appreciate all your knowledge and thanks for the videos. Howdy from the Lone Star State.
Thanks! You just made me a true believer!
I am watching just to see the dog run around there lol
LOL...
Says a lot about your approach and my love of your content that I will sit and watch you shovel dirt for ten minutes!
😂
And after all that I must wait for this miracle fill?
Dammit, Mark you aren't playing fair!
oh a cliffhanger..... good stuff... cheers
Bought my first birdies bed last week, the 8in1 it’s a beauty!
Now that just proves another point on Hügelkultur to me as in it turns into a wicking bed and that's a GREAT thing!!
Mark, you are either going to use some of the rotting sugar cane mulch or wood chops OR both for the spuds and slowly build the bed up as the spuds grow.
Thanks
Thank you Mark. Great new video and value
This is good to see!....We built a bed from logs and branches two years ago. I currently have squash, onions , strawberries, broccoli and cauliflower growing in it.
its always fun to watch your videos
Omg ! I have been following you for that long already !! Time flies !!
I foresee that you're going to have a great winter growing season. What a beautiful fresh start for the garden after that heavy rainy season and all that overgrowth :)
It's interesting that the logs especially the big ones rot from the inside out.
When you think about it the bark protects the tree from the elements, insects and fungi so it makes sense that it be the last thing to decay.
I've never seen anyone so fascinated with moisture. 😝 I mean....you have been watering it for 6 years.
Thank you so much. This was so fascinating and helpful!
Great video as always, thank you Mark 👍👍🇦🇺🇬🇧🇦🇺🇬🇧
I found this extreamly interesting, thanks!
I grab the rotten trees that fall onto the sides of the roads usually these had big grubs everywhere throughout. Bigger hard logs I stuff with bits of fungus in holes I drill into them. I have mushrooms all over the garden plus tons of worms so I think it’s doing good. Plants look great.
Marks breathing is like ASMR to my ears
Great video! love to see nature at work.
is your soil around or below 6.0 pH? wondering if low ph contributed to the rapid breakdown of the chitin in the bug shells
You are the Fun Guy. Great Quality video loads of information
Hey Mark. That s my BEST seeding soil so far.
Your new pup is gorgeous
Happy winter solstice budd, that is one chubby wormie at around 3 minutes in lol.
Appreciate the quality content sir👍👍
This really interested me. I was surprised to see how much moisture was in the logs and yet not surprised at the same time because I know that’s the whole idea with this type gardening.
Mark, after years of watching this channel I'm not sure if I've ever seen you get us all with a cliffhanger. I'm looking forward to your next video to find out both about what you're going to fill your bed with as well as tips to pull a Birdee's bed back together. Thanks as always for your wonderful insight, the way the wood was like a sponge inside after years in the ground was eye-opening. Makes me want to dig my beds back up one day and see what we've got. Cheers mate!
Fascinating.
Great video, and thank you for sharing😊
Again a very informative video. Well done Sir. Greetings from Belgium