A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum When To Mound Your Veg Rows???

My hubby and I are starting our first garden. I grew up in the Northeast and we had gardens. I remember my parents mounding the rows as the plants began to grow. My hubby who grew up in the south, says we must mound them and then plant. We live in Florida now, and have very sandy soil. Which is the best way to handle the mounds, before you plant or as the plants gorw and hill them slowly as the plant takes on size??? Help!!! Need the answer to keep the peace. LOL. Sherome

Well, I'm from Canada. We make drills here a liitle higher than the ground but not much higher. We plant mostly flat then mound as we go into the season slowly. The only thing we already plant in mounds are cucumbers, pumkins and squash.

Mind you we don't have sandy soil, so that could be a part of it also.

Thank you Tamara. I really appreciate your response.

Hard to say, sometimes it can be depending on
the type of plant you're planting...

If it's potatoes, you dig a deeeeeep trench,
plant, cover just a bit, then as the green leaves appear
you cover some more, and so on and so on...

For things like squashes, etc.. you can make one round
mound and plant on the top of that...

For the corn farmers around here, they go thru
and make trenches, *or furrows' may be you'd call 'em,
and they plant on the top of the mound so the water
goes by the sides, and the plant doesn't stand in it..
and will also collect more rain water if it's a dry season..
*funnels it down to the roots*

And tomatoes you can keep putting more dirt up on to
it's stems' and it won't matter to that kind of plant,
because it has the ability to make roots all along it's stems...

Did you say what types you were planting???

Thanks Weezie. In answer to your question, we will be planting a variety of plants. My husband already has some tomatoes in, and he already placed them on top of a mound. This makes me nervous, because the roots will bet exposed. So I have a question for you. When you said did a deep trench for tomatoes, did you mean that you place the plants in the trench or in the mound beside the trench?

The deeper you plant a tomato,
the better for the tomato plant..

The tomato plant has the ability to root
alllll along it's stem, so, even if you plant
it tooo deep, that one particular plant won't
be effected by it....
And when it has deep roots, it can water itself better
and at deeper levels, where it's cooler...
and to give them a deep watering..
*but remember to give them a steady amount of water,
but not soggy, when the soil is too dry, BER *Blossom
End Rot* can happen, when it can't get up enough water,
and can't get it's calcium intake, that can happen..

And sometimes if you plant them too shallow,
they then keep their roots at the top soil level
and tend to dry out easier/faster.. which isn't good..

And if you over water, especially when they are ripening up
they can split...

Tomatoes can be tricky, but goshhhhhhhhh soooooooo worth it,
my mouth is just watering thinking of tomatoes fresh from
the garden...

You can trench plant them too,
cause that gives them the big root system,
to feed it'self and to hold it'self up
when it's windy too...

Thanks Weezie. You have been a great help. I talked to my hubby and he has decided, since he planted them only last night, to take the tomatoes out and flatten the ground and replant them. I do remember now that you can root a tomatoe plant in a jar, but had forgotten about the way they tent to grow roots. thanks again.

See, not only did we help you keep the peace but you won the matter at hand as well

We allllll love tomatoes alot here..
There's lot's of good advice all over..

And glad, very glad I could be of some help..

What kinds' did you plant??????

Yeah Tamara! You bettcha. LOL. :wink: I'm so glad that I joined this forum. I think I'm going to love it here. I now have the confidence that we will have a great garden and that we will really learn. We have a chicken farm here and are putting chicken doodoo on the garden. We have also had a compost heap, and heap is the word, LOL, and we also spread that on the garden. Our goal is to have organic vegies. We are so tired of buying food that has been sprayed with poisons and have been irradiated. Why I think I am getting a healthy glow just thinking about it.

You know Weezie, I couldn't tell you what kind. We bought them at a local farmers market. They are an hierloom type and we were told that they have a purpleish color to them and they are especially juicey and very tasty. We plan to buy more yet, but will probably be something like the Big Boy. Next year, I plan to get all my seeds from an hierloom company.

What kind of chickens do you have. I am waiting to get my chicks in a couple of weeks from our Co-op store.

I have Rhode Island Reds, for the eggs that we sell, some White Leghorns, for white eggs that we sell. I also have some Brahmas, for the beauty, I think I'll auction thier eggs on line. I have Dark Cornish and White Rocks; these are for an experiment that I'm doing to try to breed some broiler chickens. I would use the Large White Cornish for this experiment instead of the dark, but you just can't get them. The breeders don't want us doing it ourselves so they won't sell them. I have been told that using the two breeds, it takes 3 generations to get the fast growing factor in them. I'm about to start the second generation in a week or two. I hope it works.
As you can see, my mouth get a running. LOL. Sorry.