Building a Hugelkultur Bed

In 2016 we decided to build a hugelkultur bed - a mound filled with wood and topped with soil - in order to have somewhere for the plants that hated having their feet in solid clay but I didn't have room for in the vegetable garden, principally raspberry canes. The mound would have a north side (for the raspberries) and and a south side, where I intended to grow globe artichokes. The spot we chose is at the bottom of a gentle slope and has water running through it during the winter and after summer storms. It is also the spot where we were storing our uncut fire wood and as a result had a huge amount of rubbish wood that had begun to rot beyond use.

After removing the good wood and putting the gash to one side we measured out the size of the bed 3x2m approx, a size chosen because most of the wood we had was no longer than 3m. We then dug a hole in the clay to a depth of about half a metre - this is in to solid clay, the idea being that the base would hold moisture.

We filled the hole with big logs
     
topped them off with all the wood debris from clearing the log pile 
   
mostly to fill in the gaps, and then added a big layer of smaller poles
   
next went on a layer of horse manure 
   
Before we topped it off with the topsoil removed when we dug the hole. The finished mound
   
and seen from the other side of the meadow 
     
We duly planted raspberries along the back side and I used the front for various things - tomatoes, pumpkins, flowers. But I have to say that nothing thrived on the front, mostly because there were so many rodents and slugs living in the gaps in the timber! Three years ago I planted a peach tree, some strawberry plants and a rhubarb crown - all but the tree have vanished! So now it is just full of raspberries on one side and blackcurrants on the other. Five years after construction the mound is completley flat and I have to top up the soil to prevent the roots of the peach tree becoming exposed.
   
It hasn't really achieved what I wanted and was hard work to create; I also thought the mound would last longer. On the other hand this is the only bit of the productive garden that never gets watered.