An experiment in Hugelkulture in containers

[skinyea]

HK clearly works in tubs. I have never tried growing cabbage as it is so cheap in grocery stores. how does it taste compared to store bought?

 

[Meadowlark]

I refuse to eat store bought cabbage...tastes like cardboard. Garden grown is an entirely different matter, however.

We love it steamed, stir-fried, in soups and in casseroles. It's a whole different veggie from the garden.

 

[Meadowlark]

Summary Report for Fall 2022 Leafy Vegetables

Leafy Veggie	HK Pro​	Gar Pro​	Pro Ratio​
Malabar spinach 8-8	16.2​	4.1​	3.95​
collards 9-2	8.1​	5.7​	1.42​
Swiss Chard 8-20	4.8​	2.5​	1.92​
Turnips 8-21 tops	78​	54​	1.44​
Bok Choy 8-20	45.3​	22​	2.06​
ButterCrunch lettuce 8-21	37.4​	15.2​	2.46​
Sylyestra lettuce 8-21	33.4​	13.3​	2.51​
Little gem lettuce 8-22	31.9​	12.8​	2.49​
Romain lettuce 8-22	6.8​	3.2​	2.13​
Total	261.9​	132.8​	1.97​

Across 9 different leafy veggies, a total of app 395 ounces of produce, the Hügelkultur container grown veggies outproduced inground veggies by an average of 2 to 1.

Three other leafy veggies not included in the above table are still in progress.

 

[skinyea]

I refuse to eat store bought cabbage...tastes like cardboard. Garden grown is an entirely different matter, however.

We love it steamed, stir-fried, in soups and in casseroles. It's a whole different veggie from the garden.

will try it. thank you. will do my research but assuming colder weather?

 

[Meadowlark]

will try it. thank you. will do my research but assuming colder weather?

Yes.

 

[Mick Emery]

It seems that this thread is about how you're gardening... & how you're gardening wrong in your garden. lol!

 

[Meadowlark]

I'll really be watching the carrots here. If your bed fill is anything like mine you'll get some crazy modern art sculptures the first few years as the roots fork around sticks and the like.

Results on the carrots portion of the experiment are in: No crazy modern art sculptures resulted in the HK carrot tub.

However, the in-ground carrots planted for comparison germinated poorly (this was back in Aug. which isn't a great time to germinate carrots here except the HK tub germinated just fine), what did germinate in-ground were difficult to pull and somewhat irregular shaped (see those on the left in the below photo).

The HK tub carrots were surprisingly uniform in length of about 8-10 inches and in shape. These were planted and harvested early for this area compared to my normal start dates in Oct and harvest in Feb/March. They could have been allowed to grow more but this size is what I prefer for fresh eating.

These results are surprising to me as most of the other root veggies, e.g. turnips, beets, radishes, etc. have not shown such positive results in HK containers.

I certainly will not be afraid to raise carrots again in the future in these tubs with these results.

By way of addressing Mr. Yan's comments, these tubs are constructed 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 with the top layer of garden soil at 6-7 inches, then well composted utility mulch at another 6-7 inches and then the rotted/decaying wood below. That gives something like 12-14 inches before the carrot roots encounter anything of any size in wood particles. Seems to work.

 

[skinyea]

only bad thing that HK brought and it might just be coincidence. but I got bees nests in 5 of the HK tubs. strange

 

[Meadowlark]

Grand Summary:

Across 38 different vegetables planted in HK containers and duplicated in ground planting, across spring /summer/fall/early winter 2022, a total of 3077 ounces of produce (87,231 grams) was harvested from the HK containers and 1990 ounces (56415 grams) harvested from identical in ground planted veggies. There were no, zero, nada veggies that failed to meet the targeted goal of equal to or greater production ratio of .5.

The production ratio across the entire experiment was 1.6.



Details by vegetable type are shown below for the fall/winter veggies, some of which are still in progress.

Comments/questions welcome. This experiment is concluded.

Summary	Leafly Veggie Fall/Winter	HK Pro	Gar Pro	Pro Ratio
1​	Malabar spinach 8-8	16.2​	4.1​	3.95​
2​	Spinach 10-20	7.5​	7.1​	1.05
3​	Kale 10-18	10.4​	9.6​	1.08
4​	collards 9-2	8.1​	5.7​	1.42​
5​	Swiss Chard 8-20	4.8​	2.5​	1.92​
6​	Turnips 8-21 tops	78​	54​	1.44​
7​	Bok Choy 8-20	45.3​	22​	2.06​
8​	ButterCrunch lettuce 8-21	37.4​	15.2​	2.46​
9​	Sylyestra lettuce 8-21	33.4​	13.3​	2.51​
10​	Little gem lettuce 8-22	31.9​	12.8​	2.49​
11​	Romain lettuce 8-22	6.8​	3.2​	2.13​
12​	iceberg 10-20	frozen		#VALUE!​
	sub-Total	279.8​	149.5​	1.87​
Summary	Root Veggies Fall/Winter	HK Pro	Gar Pro	Pro Ratio
1​	turnips bottom	44​	83​	0.53​
2​	Radish 8-22	13.5​	12.1​	1.12​
3​	Carrot 8-21	32.1​	5.7​	5.63​
4​	Parsnip 10-2	in prog	in prog	#VALUE!​
5​	Parsley 10-10	in prog	in prog	#VALUE!​
6​	sprouted onion 10-9	19.5​	20.1​	0.97​
7​	leeks 10-17	in prog	in prog
8​	garlic 10-1	in prog	in prog	#VALUE!​
9​	beets 9-14	in prog	in prog	#VALUE!​
10​	leeks 10-17	5.1​	5.3​	0.96​
11​	Sweet potatoes 8- 16	frozen	frozen
12​	Yukon gold 10-15	frozen	frozen
	sub-Total	114.2​	126.2​	0.90​
Summary	Brassicas	HK Pro	Gar Pro	Pro ratio
1​	red cabbage 10-18	in prog	in prog
2​	Aspabroc(brocolinni) 9 26	12.5​	8.1​	1.54​
3​	Broccoli 8-20	36.5​	22.5​	1.62​
4​	Cauliflower 8-26	113​	60​	1.88​
5​	Brussels Sprouts 8-26	in prog	in prog	#VALUE!​
	sub-Total	162​	90.6​	1.79​
Summary	Other
1​	Sugar snap peas 8-8	frozen	frozen
2​	Toad pumpkin 8-21	49​	12​	4.08​
	sub-total	49​	12​	2.68​
Grand Tot	Leafly Veggie Fall/Winter (12) sub-total	409.5​	197.1​	2.08​
	Root Veggies Fall/Winter (12) sub-total	373​	174.6​	2.14​
	Brassicas (5) sub-total	782.5​	371.7​	2.11​
	other fall (2) subtotal	782.5​	371.7​	0.30​
	other spring (7) sub-total	729.70​	874.60​	0.83​
	Grand Total (38)	3077.20​	1989.7​	1.55​