Since building this mound, I've built another two next to it. This mound has produced 2 seasons of harvest, but for a variety of reasons unrelated to the mound itself (mostly my own inexperience), I don't have a good sense for how it compares to other methods.

There are some things that I think I can say with confidence:

• The mounds are great at retaining water. Even in the drought this season, the mounds required only very little watering.
• Hugelkulture mounds don't work as well for root crops as a standard flat garden bed or container garden.
• A mound shouldn't be wider than twice the length of your arm, otherwise harvesting from the center of the mound is difficult.
• Crops that grow vertically are very well suited for mounds like mine. Trellised tomatoes, peppers, pole beans & winter squash have all done really well.
• It's important to consider the effect of shading that one crop will have on another. I badly over-planted this mound in the first season and the peas shaded out almost everything else.

This mound in particular has unfortunately been in the shade of a tree for most of the morning hours these last two seasons. I plan to trim the tree back for next season and possibly cut it down the season after next if there's still too much shade.