Taking care of a mound

Mounds need to be watered like every other garden bed. By starting to water at the top, you will not waste water. Do not water hastily, that is, with too much water pressure, to avoid erosion or seeds being washed away. Planting on terrasses and mounding the soil around the stem of your growing plants will ensure that the water you add to the soil will reach the roots of your plants.

Adding organic material to the soil, pulling weeds and loosening up the soil periodically will help your plants to grow well too, of course. Once your top plant grows high enough, make sure to stake it well.

Despite well planned companion planting, you might still encounter bugs and critter problems along the way. If the summer is a wet summer, you might have to deal with slugs, for example. An easy and organic way of dealing with slugs is to edge your mound with crushed eggshell. Slugs cannot crawl over the sharp edges of crushed eggshell without hurting themselves, so they stay away from your mound. In contrast to an ordinary garden bed though, you have a much easier time with the eggshell since, if you protect the outer circle well, slugs will leave your whole mound in peace. Besides, the white rim around the mound adds beauty to your mound. Just make sure that you have enough crushed eggshell to renew the layer frequently, that is, at the latest after every rain.

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Mound Size

When you start digging your mounds, keep in mind that you need to be able to reach the middle conveniently and from all sides. If you want to build large mounds, plan in space to walk on, probably even place a few stepping stones. Otherwise, restrict the size of your mound to a radius of 2 feet.

After deep spading the soil, pile it up in the middle and create small terrasses of soil to indicate where you will plant your seed or seedlings. If you feel the need to stabelize your terrasses, rows of stones will do the job nicely.

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