The Dead Hedge Hugelkultur Mound or "Fedge"

Siusaidh's Bonny Felter  

That's a Scottish way of saying Suzanna's Beautiful Tangle.

This tangle can go by many names though. Dead hedge, hugelkultur mound, fedge, living wall (and some persistent trespassers have called it and ME several other creative names as well!) I will discuss those names and this little creation's many uses in this post.

We have been in the process of cleaning up a property that had seen a lot of neglect. Previous renters had left a horrible mess and took no notice of the condition of the yard. We have had our hands full.

We could have hauled all the brush off to the city transfer station, but I knew all those hardy branches and thorns could be used for the betterment of this property.

We also had an ongoing problem of trespassers. We had to make the neighborhood aware that there were new people living here now and things had to change. There had been squatters living on the premises, and other illegal activities had taken place there in the past also.

All this has stopped since our presence here.

We have made a few people quite mad because their activities on our property are now being recorded by our security. That information is being passed on to proper authorities also.

We have gotten a huge amount of moral support and hand shakes thanking us for cleaning up a problem property in the neighborhood and just for being decent folks.

Then came the green houses out front. That has been a pleasant surprise to many. I have had several folks walking by stop to chat and ask questions about my gardening efforts they can see from their stroll in the neighborhood.

This was one of the best ways I could show people that there is no need to spend money to improve your neighborhood. Just use a sharp blade and cut away overgrown brush, mow your lawn, pick up trash (and trash and trash and trash...), wash the windows, hammer back up some sagging gutters, walk around and check your property every day.

I renewed our family's volunteer status with the Connersville Parks and Recreation Department so we could go around and collect fallen brush and clear away trash that was blowing all around the park behind us and into our yard. All that brush has been used in our composting efforts and we are creating healthy soil with the help of kitchen scraps and our friends, The Worms!

So what is the dead hedge hugelkultur mound?

Dead hedge is just a man made hedge (or boundary) made from dead brush (or from fresh clippings from the plants you want to propagate along a fence row.) In this case we wanted the dead hedge to be the fence row.

Fedge is just fence + hedge. A Fence Hedge. Very simple to understand.

We wanted to show that you can create a fence in a way that served the purpose, but also benefit the community. This was important to us because we did not want to block out our view of, and our gateway to, Offutt's Park behind us, and we wanted to use the brush material as a basis of a pollinator habitat.

I am also very proud of the fact that it cost us $0!!!! Hand tools and carrying (or dragging!) brush by hand to the site meant no fossil fuels were used either.

Hugelkultur mound? Now that is a bit more complicated. Hugelkultur is the agricultural practice of digging a trench, laying logs and branches down, then layering green mulches (like grass clippings, fresh leaves, fresh tree trimmings, and even kitchen scraps) , then dirt, and then repeating the layers with more logs and branches, green mulches, and then more dirt.

Usually, one would want to start this process in the late summer or early fall to get a good head start for the next year's seasons to help in the decaying and feeding processes in a most hands off way. We came to this property January 1, 2018 so we did not have that option.

So here is what I did instead:

1. I cut a tiny trench along the length of "fedge row" that I wanted to create.
2. I laid out a thick layer of vermi-compost (worm poo and dirt they make) from one of my older worm bins in that tiny trench.
3. I laid down the trunks of the small trees, larger branches and the woodier pieces from all the shrubs and bushes that we had to remove.
4. Then I have added as the months have progressed. (pulled weeds, leaves, left over dirt from old worm bins.
5, Then this past month I wove in rose bush canes and lilac bush clippings, making sure to root in the bottoms of these so they would start to grow nicely within this fedge.
6. Every day in May I have sown wildflower seeds of all sorts to grow into the most appealing pollinator habitat I could imagine. This will be ongoing for the duration.
7. Starting this week I have been sowing in greens, legumes, and beans that will provide food for us humans as well as the seeds, pollen, and nectar for the birds and bees!

Here are just SOME of the plants we have seen pop up (some are just now sprouting) from our efforts just in the last few days: hollyhocks, foxglove, snapdragon, daisies, bachelor's buttons, cone flower, moon flower, morning glories, cosmos, nasturtium, marigold, squashes, mustards, lettuces, carrots, onions, garlic, chives, dandelion, wild violets, roses, lilac, sweet peas (both flowers and legumes!), broad beans , green beans, bush beans, radishes, turnips, sweet potatoes, and the list will continue to grow as the year progresses.

Most importantly, I wanted this to be viewed by the public WITHOUT having to come onto our property. A nice stroll in Offuttt's Park will afford you a view onto our efforts in urban farming, pollinator habitat creation, urban greenscaping and food forest production. There is a new community garden going in at Offutt's Park this year and this pollinator habitat will be an extremely valuable resource for their efforts in that little space.

I just registered Siusaidh's Bonny Felter with the Xerces Society. If you want to learn more about pollinator conservation please visit your local library to find resources there, or visit the Xerces Society online.

To learn more about the Xerces Society's Million Pollinator Garden Challenger go here.

These are all topics I discuss, research, and investigate here on this blog and in my everyday life.

Here is another community resource that we hold very dear to our hearts -

Another Connersville Parks and Recreation Property: The Nickel Plate Rail Trail. 

The entire trail is a pollinator habitat, among many other passive urban agriculture activities going on at this quiet urban oasis.

The Nickel Plate Trail and The River's Edge Project are a part of the ongoing Whitewater River development project that we have volunteered many hours to in various ways. I will touch on those efforts in future posts.

Well for now you know the drill:

Get outside, DO SOMETHING, and Stay Squirrely!