Hügelkultur (usually transliterated into English simply as “hugelkultur”) has been used for centuries in eastern Europe and Germany, often as part of a broader permaculture system.

Put simply, hugelkultur is a centuries-old, traditional way of building a garden bed from rotten logs and plant debris. These mound shapes are created by marking out an area for a raised bed, clearing the land, and then heaping up woody material (that’s ideally already partially rotted) topped with compost and soil.

Downed trees, fallen branches headed for the brush pile, and rough lumber can all be used; you are essentially taking rotting wood and allowing it to compost in place for a superfertile, moisture-retaining garden bed.

These mounds can be 5 to 6 feet high—massive heaps of logs, branches, leaves, straw, cardboard, grass clippings, and manure or compost mounded to be wider at the bottom than at the top. As the wood shrinks and breaks down, a hügelbed sinks; one that is 6 feet high, for example, will ultimately sink to about 2 feet after several years of decomposition and settling.