r/Hugelkultur

So I put permeable landscape cloth on top of a layer of old (dry) rotted straw. Below that is compost and broken up alfalfa pellets, over the bottom layer of punky logs chinked with natural old pine bark. The layer of organic raised-bed soul is over the fabric. Then mulch. Soul stays moist 4 inches down so water appears to be wicking up to the soil level. I've seen some mushrooms pop up when it was cooler, so mycelium. Tomatoes are doing okay, peppers and eggplants bushy and just beginning to fruit. Squash and cucumbers are disappointing so far. It's pretty hot in the Sacramento Valley).

So is the permeable landscape cloth a plus or minus?

I know all of the research says one of the worse trees you can use for hugel beds is cedar wood because it has strong antifungal and antimicrobial properties, which is the exact opposite of what we are working to encourage in the soil life but... has anyone tried out using cedar with success? I dug out my hugel beds to about 1.5-2ft underground, placed logs, branches and foodscraps/grass clippings until ground level and backfilled with the native soil. One bed is predominantly cedar branches about 2-4inch thick in diameter because it is what I have available. My husband woodchipped some but i still have a big ol pile in need to be used. Where i live there is a good 90inches of rainfall during spring/fall/winter so i would think that would help accelerate decomposition fairly quickly, despite cedar being resistant to rot. Plus, will all of the volatile oils in cedar *really* linger that long if it is dead wood? I have one last bed mostly full and i have yet to touch the cedar so i can observe difference outcomes between my hugel beds, but it would be much easier for me to use up the cedar as opposed to driving to the nearby forest and stocking up on other dead wood. About half way through my second pregnancy with an almost 2 year old so im doing what i can, digging and such, but would prefer to keep my tasks in the yard instead of loading up my truck from the forest floor with my toddler on my back 😅