Creating the mound

Here is day one where we created the mound-

Firstly, plotted out the bed onto the lawn and staked it with twine.

We chose the bed site because it receives good sunlight (vegies like at least 6 hours per day), has little wind and receives the run-off from the rest of the yard. It was also a natural extension of the existing garden bed that has citrus trees (orange, mandarin & lemon).

The bed is about 1.2m wide and 4-5 metre long.

The ditch runs the full length on both sides and all the dirt dug from the ditch was thrown into the centre to make the first layer of the mound.

The ditch has to be level so that the water sits evenly along the edge and doesn't all run to one end of the garden.

As we have sloping land, this meant one end had to be slightly deeper than the other. We checked the level by laying a long plank in the ditch using level meter on top of it.

The ditch should be about 30cm wide- enough so that you can walk comfortably inside it.