Tuesday, April 17, 2018

A "Keyhole" garden


It seems I am a little behind the times here as I haven’t posted since February 21st. Maybe it is because we haven’t gone anywhere since then but have just been doing things around the house.

I did have one project that intrigued me and that was to build a “Keyhole Garden” after talking to son Tim about the one he was working on. Some Google research told me a lot about them and it soon became apparent that a true 6 foot diameter keyhole garden required a lot of compostable material, something in short supply right now in my garden. The name drives from the slot shaped much as a piece of pie removed from the circle which allows access to a wire cage in the middle to add compost material and to harvest vegetables.

However, I did have enough material for a 3 foot diameter keyhole garden, minus the keyhole (keyhole not needed for a 3 foot diameter circle), which would go nicely in a spot from which we had removed a very thorny cactus, think big pointy spikes.

Keyhole gardens originated in England and are used in some African countries which had little good soil. They basically are used to grow vegetables. A well known authority is Dr Deb Tolman of Texas who teaches classes in building Keyhole gardens. Her videos are available on YouTube.

I had a supply of bricks available so that became my material for making the walls. First I drew a circle and then I first dug down to increase the depth of the keyhole and also to level the spot. I next laid the bricks 5 layers high. I cut and fit chicken wire in the bottom to discourage rodents and a certain snoopy dog, (Craig’s).




I then wet large sheets of cardboard and fitted them into the circle including up the sides. I built a chicken wire cage about 8-9 inches in diameter and tall enough to reach above the expected top of the soil. I inserted a tin can in the top of the cage with a lid on it again to keep pests out. This cage will be filled with kitchen garbage and shredded paper and watered well each time it is filled. The hope is that the water will wash nutrients from the kitchen vegetables down into the soil and the surrounding plants will send their roots deep to get moisture thereby needing less water.




I added rough compostable materials such as old tin cans and rough wood cuttings. All of these will break down over time and supply nutrients to the soil.





Next was several layers of wet newspapers and newspaper type magazines.


On top of this was added brown leafy cuttings and branches, shredded waste paper, kitchen garbage, green leafy material, and finished compost. Each layer was wet down with a hose. A top layer of about 6-8 inches of good garden soil was used to finish of the garden. The soil was sloped to be high near the center so rainwater will drain off.





So what has been the results of this experiment? So far, I have 3 of the wire cages in use, 1 in the Keyhole garden and one each next to 2 rose bushes. The 3 of them use up most of the compostable kitchen garbage we generate. I plan to add 3 or 4 more cages in my garden when I plant my tomatoes, zucchini, and squash. The hope is that we will generate more kitchen garbage in the summer time.



I don't know why I have larger text in one paragraph as it is the same text height in my original copy. Leave it to Blogger to change something. Always an adventure!