I really love this type of garden! Try using gray water, or clean wastewater, to save money and reduce your environmental impact. Initially, you should water the plants until they become established, then you can just water the center basket to maintain your garden over time. The column is also where you should water your garden. Add already composted material, or compostable food waste, to the compost basket in the center of the keyhole garden. If this is the case, you will need to water your garden frequently. Depending on the size of your area, you'll want to make a garden that's about three feet tall and six feet in diameter. A short history of keyhole gardening. Building Your Own Keyhole Garden. Crops Not Recommended For a Keyhole Garden Your keyhole garden will now grow delicious, healthy vegetables all year round. Congratulations! I dropped compostable materials into the column. The basket is built to take in compost over time. • Water from washing hands, laundry, or dishes is poured into the basket. What Plants Do Well in a Keyhole Garden? If you’re deadset on planting a keyhole garden, it’s probably because you live in an arid climate. The first thing you’ll need to do when building your own keyhole garden is to come up with a plan for it. A keyhole garden is an ongoing project. A keyhole garden has the ability to use very little water (only a gallon a day in slightly cooler weather), especially if you make a cover for your composter. Over time this will decay down, and nutrients from it will leach into the garden as you water it or it rains. Consisting of several layers of mulch, earth and other easy to gather materials, keyhole gardens offer a number of important advantages: They are highly sustainable. I couldn’t find photos of my keyhole garden in Texas, but I can tell you how mine worked. There are actually two different keyhole garden designs. • Clean water is used on the topsoil. Most of the hard work is done by the micro-organisms in the garden … Now that you’ve made a raised garden bed, you might be wondering how best to fill it.Raised garden beds usually need a mixture of soil and compost. But, the best plants would be root plants such as carrots, beets, radishes, and leafy vegetables like spinach, lettuce, and herbs. An African keyhole garden is basically a small scale intensive raised bed growing system that is fed through a central composting system which is made in the design of a basket to allow water and nutrients to access the soil where the plants are growing. They require very little water, even in dry climates. (I did water the soil when the plants were very young). You can get more information on the Gardening Channel blog, here… DIY Cinder Block Keyhole Garden. These keyhole garden beds were designed to enable the sick to have a kitchen garden close to the house that was easy for them to work in. Keyhole gardens also provide a significant amount of food for such a small footprint. A keyhole garden is a small garden with a unique, keyhole shape. An overhead view of this type of raised bed would look like a large keyhole in a circular plot with easy access to the center basket where vegetable scraps and other green matter containing water are added. The nutrients and enough water supply would allow them to grow healthy. All kinds of plants can be planted in a keyhole garden. Keeping the Garden Growing. You can mix the soil in with the compost thoroughly, or layer them, which is known as lasagna gardening. Rocks, brick, and wood are all great building materials here. They produce nutrient-rich crops. Maintenance of the keyhole garden Watering • The garden should be watered regularly so that the garden soil is moist. 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