I'm pretty new to permaculture and still learning a lot, so this year I'm trying to plant my very first tree guilds. But I'm reading conflicting opinions on whether or not to plant my new dwarf fruit trees on mounds.
We bought a house on a foothill of the Appalachians, so our soil is very sandy/gravelly with loads of rocks. It also used to be a corn farm a few decades ago, so I suspect low nutrients/high drainage are big reasons it's difficult to even grow grass on our yard. At the same time, there are a few spots that get puddles at the back/bottom of our slightly sloping yard after hard rains. We live in zone 6b in New Jersey, where we get about 48 inches of rain a year and 39 inches of snow average. Since we are on a hilltop, it can get very gusty. Most of our vegetables are grown in raised beds or with lots of compost added in ground.
I built up a long 3 ft wide East-West row of compost, about 4-5 inches tall, going down our maybe 5-10 degree slope, to plant the new bare root fruit trees in, to give them nutrition and help hold on to moisture. But now I've read that having them up above the sandy soil might make their roots reject the sandy rocky soil underneath, might make the tree sink over time, and might allow the wind to knock the tree over. And I've also read about berm/swale systems failing in sandy soil because any pit might allow the water to drain too fast through the sand and never reach the roots of the tree on a berm, where it dries out. Can anyone help me to decide which planting method would be right for dwarf fruit trees in my situation?
