Building The Pyramid
Laying a bunch of sticks has never felt better! Today, we cleared about 1000 SQ ft of miscellaneous oak and pine tree branches and nearly completed the third layer on our 180 ft mound aka Mound #2 aka our Big Mamma Mound!
We are building our hügelkultur mound babes in layers of three to ensure years of nutrient rich, regenerative soil. We dig 3-4 ft deep, mostly 😅, and then start with layer one. Layer one is a perfect puzzle of generally 6' long by 1' wide, 25+ lb pine, oak and cottonwood logs. Then we start "building the pyramid 🔺” as Seal likes to say 😂😍! Layer two is made up of mega chunky, a few hundred pound rounds that we lay up to start creating the spine 🦴 of our babe. Thank the universe for our tractor 🚜 😂 These "rounds" are cushioned in on each side by more logs and thus you have layer two. Oh, we meant to also mention that a lot of this is meticulously backfilled by hand by yours truly.
Layer three or "our fresh breath of air" as I like to refer to it, is made up of thin logs, generally 6' long and 6 to 12" wide and LIGHT in weight 🙏🏼😵💫. These thin logs sit on top of the spine to reinforce the pyramid and then are cushioned in by small cuts of wood, generally 1' long by 6" wide. However, reminder❗Nature is perfectly imperfect and the puzzle that building our hügelkultur mounds is might actually be our favorite and most satisfying part!! On each side of the pyramid 🔺, we lay all of these scrap wood branches to hold the soil in it's pyramid and then BOOM 💥🤯🎉💥 we get to start planting our fruit trees and food!!!!
This method of farming is absolutely extraordinary and unconventional in nature... After all, our influence Sepp Holzer wrote a book called The Rebel Farmer 😂😂😍! It sure takes forever, provides us with little to no instant gratification, but oh my!! The love we feel from mother earth 🌎 since starting and the strengthened love and patience we have together and for our existence is unmeasurable.
This Big Mamma Mound will be home to over 50 fruit and berry trees soooooooo soooooon 🎉🎉🎉
-🧡Seal + Dove
