Ok so the first thing you are probably asking yourself is "Just what is Mound Gardening?"
Well see My Grandparents taught me all this and I could not find this kind of gardening anyplace else so I had to make up a word for it.
The Basic principles behind it are that it protects your plants from small burrowing critters in perticular squirrels, rabbits and chipmunks.
Its also easy to maintain as it has a protective coating of debris that helps prevent undesired weed growth and since its in the form of a mound of dirt its easier to pick the weeds that do come up.
Its smaller sizes make it an attractive option for people that don't have much space, its easily decorated with things so putting one in your front yard won't turn it into an eye sore and its made from things that you can find laying around making it a low cost option.
The First thing you need to do is pick the location and how large you want to make it then you need to till the selected area and since these things are typically small its probably best to till it up with a hoe or a shovel.
Then you want to make a bunch of potting soil to make the mound usually done by mixing up compost with regular dirt and pilling it up on top of the place you have tilled out forming a mound of dirt.
Next comes the fun part as you place obstractions and debris that will discourage burrowing animales.
My favorites are leaves, broken up sticks, pieces of thorn bush and place rocks around the mound.
Other creative things I have done include placing a rock on top of the mound the theory is that if something tries to burrow in the dirt the rock with some luck will roll on top of them crushing there skull and then another thing you can do is deliberatly plant thorn weeds on the outer edges of the garden.
Last you want to plant your seeds to make sure that they are planted in such a way as they will be able to get through the obstractions and debris without any difficulty(just make sure the small space above the seed is open), however this shouldn't be a problem with just about everything except potatoes.
For best results you want to come back when the plants start growing and make sure they arent having any problems.
When complete the garden will look like a small armored fortress.
