Queer Prepper: Hugelkultur Solves All My Problems!!

W O W okay so yesterday I learned about something called Hugelkultur and now omfuckinggod I'm obsessed with Hugelkultur!!

Hugelkutur is some European-type-language for 'hill culture'. From what the internet's told me about Hugelkultur over the last 12 hours, the idea is: You pile up logs and other yard debris like lawn clippings and leaves, and you just leave it, and it magically turns into a raised super nutrient-rich garden bed! You can make them in little hills or traditional rows or even undulating snaky shapes!

PLANT CHICAGO / CREATIVE COMMONS via

So ~fanciful~! Like if Hobbits gardened (do Hobbits garden?) they'd definitely build Hugelkultur. Given the thoroughly helpless feeling I have — contemplating both the pandemic and the collapse of our economy — Hugelkultur does solve a few of the problems I can try to tackle right now!!

First, if you're an amateur vegetable gardener (or specifically a queer prepper) like me, one of the biggest issues you run into right away is getting enough soil to fill garden beds. Because, it turns out, soil worthy of growing food is super expensive and (around here at least) hard to come by in bulk. As I've discussed previously on this blog, Compost Is Very Awesome. But it takes a long time to produce even a little of it. Compost in my garden is more like a seasoning I add, less the bulk of what's in a given bed. The soil here in upstate New York is not adequate for growing vegetables, according to everybody who gives me opinions about stuff like this, aka every Boomer I speak to about gardening. From what I've experienced, at least, the soil here is 99% rocks.

In the past, I've bought soil to fill my beds from a company nearby that makes it from composted leaves. Cute idea in theory but in practice, it showed up full of trash. Trash that years later I'm still fishing out, including the other day: a small green plastic bead, and the top of one of those little baggies you'd use for drugs. Which, obviously drugs are cool and I am impressed that my garden does drugs. But fishing trash out of my soil constantly is annoying as heck. And, I'm guessing, not very good for us (??).

Second awesome thing about Hugelkultur: the hilled beds end up being raised, even after they settle some (you're supposed to pile the logs as high as you can) and therefore, you don't have to stoop to tend them. Regardless of your age, I think, stooping over for hours (as can happen when you're doing garden stuff like fishing plastic trash out of your beds) is a total bitch on the back. And as I get older, I'll only be happier for having this bed height.

Another problem Hugelkultur solves: My backyard is full of menacing piles of sticks and logs that the previous owners left everywhere. We haven't figured out why they left piles of logs like this. Maybe they planned to haul them away but never got to it? Before this pandemic, my #1 contamination fear was to do with with ticks and Lyme and such. If you look up where ticks love to live, the answer is menacing piles of sticks and logs.

One time I even had this guy over who said he'd help haul it the menacing stick and log piles away. Once he got here he decided instead he'd burn them in place. He wrote down an estimate to do these burns (even though I didn't like the sound of this at all) and emailed us the estimate too and then he never showed up and we never heard from him again. Which is honestly what doing business out here in the country tends to be like, so none of this was very surprising. I was totally relieved because burning those piles sounded dangerous and bad for the atmosphere (right??). Turns out Hugelkultur is like the opposite. This blog post about the awesomeness of Hugelkultur mentions this emissions angle: "You can save the world from global warming by doing carbon sequestration in your own back yard!"

Many folks, I realize, do not have their own backyards. Let alone the kind of property we have here (a century ago, this was an actual farm. When we moved here three years ago, the house had been sitting on the market a while and was full of mice and the gardens were Secret Garden-style overgrown). Some of my gardening friends online yesterday were mentioning that there's a huge surge in demand for seeds and gardening supplies right now, as many more people are becoming interested in growing their own food. And they're stuck home. I think it's awesome if more people want to grow things and something I'd add is: You do not need a backyard to get in on this gardening action. I lived for years in cities and I almost aways grew herbs on my windowsills.

So consider growing an herb garden. Samin Nosrat made the same recommendation on this live call-in episode of Death Sex & Money slash United States of Anxiety. You don't need to buy fancy equipment. You can use an egg carton to sprout seeds and then you can transfer seedlings to sawed-off milk cartons or another 3"-ish inch type containers (just be sure everything's got holes in the bottom for drainage). Set them on your sunniest windowsill (south-facing preferable, or east-facing). Or if you prefer / can afford it, buy a lil grow light for your herbs, or one of those countertop herb growing set-ups.

As it happens, my reporting over the last several years has focused in on what positively impacts human (mental) health, and one answer is, anecdotally and according to the research: growing plants is good for us. Tending something green and alive. Not to mention, you'll have fresh parsley or cilantro or basil or whatever over coming months and that's a good thing if fresh things become harder to come by. Also, in general, it's so much cheaper and fresher and practical to grow you own herbs rather than buy supermarket ones so they can die in your fridge.

I've decided — and the Benevolent Blogmasters have sanctioned — this as a column called Queer Prepper *deep bow*. Have the End Times gotten you interested in gardening? Do you have questions? Leave 'em in the comments and I'll try to answer (maybe I'll answer questions in future posts?). I've only been doing this stuff seriously for a few years but I love it. Maybe I can be of help to somebody just starting out.

p.s. No time like the present to read The Parable of the Sower!!! The destiny of earthseed is to take root amongst the stars!