On the back of an initially warm and wet summer I had an exponential amount of taro pups singing out for a new home. This was an opportunity to build a herbaceous hugelkultur mound, which should feed and nourish a blend of mostly taro and kūmara well into the future.

The herbacous layers are comprised of green ficus leaves & a tithonia divisalfora (Mexican sunflower) slurry. Topped with a compost soil mix generated from my chicken run, and then a layer of chestnut wood mulch. The garden itself is edged with a mixture of old plum and chestnut wood, following the contour of the land to maximise water retention.

As well as the taro and kūmara, the guild currently has one banana on the southern end, with a chestnut adjacent that is being aggressively managed for coppice wood. There is also two tithonia divisalfora at each end of the bed that have and will continue to be aggressively chopped and dropped as in situ fertiliser. These were pre existing sunflowers as contour markers that now become part of what I hope will become a highly productive and happy tropical guild.