big logs

smaller sticks and a couple buckets of kitchen scraps

some woodchips and leaves, tomorrow i will be putting the dirt back in. any suggestion on what i can grow in it this summer? im thinking alfalfa

Fun pics. I'm constantly fascinated by the hugelculture idea, but so far I have only piled up the wood in preparation for the day when I come upon some extra dirt :).

I'd say grow something you can EAT!

Squash grows well in those messy, half-digested beds. Other vegetables not so much. Looks like a 4X4 right? so two zucchini plants on one side, a trailing winter squash on the other.

i dont know how well squash or zucchini would do, its rather shady there when the big maple tree's leaves come in. the grass and weeds grow fine, but having a big fruit with only about 6 inches of dirt then logs seems like a stretch to me.

Rather shady? No crops do well in shade.

have you seen back to eden? he has alot of crops growing under trees, i am attempting that with lettuces because it gets in upper90s to100s consistently in the summer and id like to have some leafy greens, kale and peas seem to do alright in those conditions.

I have a a few smaller beds like that i put in a couple years ago. I put in arugula and a hearty spicy mix of mesclun, mostly kales. A beet variety for their greens. Planted a few weeks ago and all survived last weeks snowfall just fine. I'll succession plant more tender salad mixes in a few weeks.
The trees are just barely at bud stage so i'm getting the sun i need now, then i'll get dappled sun when it gets hot in july. Lack of sun does slow everything down, but i usually have more than i can consume at that point and don't get the bolting like my other full sun beds.
You'll figure out what works this year. Just give a few things a try. Cilantro and chard did ok as well. Did not get big giant greens but did get some good amounts for eating fresh in salads. I just planted thick.
Not much happens at all in the late summer/early fall with thick foliage cover and the sun moving back to its winter position, but that is the trade-off.
Once the fall leaves fell i did have some greens around Thanksgiving by just leaving them alone. They seemed to just go into a suspended time of low growth, then a fall boost.
You'll need a bit of soil first, ; )
I'd place another another board, at least to make a small corner triangle, volume of maybe 2 sq feet and get some soil in to do a fair test.

i had some broccoli that was starting to die in their small containers they came in, so i just stuck them in here