flowerbug
Garden Master
I also liked her video on beginner gardening. She thoroughly explains Hügelkultur without naming it.
I am going to see if I can do this where my tomatoes go this year. I certainly have plenty of sticks and will soon be sawing off saplings, and I can put a layer of 4 mo used stall bedding on the bottom layer. I have dug out 3 ft pits in my big garden many years ago. We'll see what I can do...
it's just a way of using up chunks of wood without having to chip them or burn them. i consider it an ok technique, but there are some common sense things about using the method based upon your overall climate. and of course most people are using very small ones and that doesn't work that great for some areas because of heat and dry spells.
you want enough size and thermal mass that your plant roots don't dry out and get fried in the heat and if they are too small they'll get washed down by the rains.
raised beds with edges are not what the people who did hugels to start with were talking about. instead they were dealing with mostly large pieces of trees and burying them with several feet of dirt and making a ridge on contour to create an effective moisture barrier and erosion control that they could then plant into.
tiny pieces of wood in a raised bed covered by a relatively small amount of dirt just isn't the same thing and isn't going to get the same results.
in an arid climate you want those chunks of wood buried below grade because you do want the hugels to collect and retain moisture (to help the plants out but also to help rotting those chunks of wood). in the more wet eastern part of the USoA you can put the wood up higher as there are usually enough rains to keep things moist enough. but still you do have to keep an eye on the hugels and water them from time to time just like any other garden if the plants get too dry.