A little progress on our keyhole garden. Now I'm just waiting on more bricks for the structure then I can fill it all in with soil.
I'm super excited to work with this technique as I believe keyhole and hugelkultur together will be ideal for our hot, dry climate with long droughts. Gardeners who use these methods can sometimes get by without watering at all!
• Keyhole gardening is a multifunctional design invented in South Africa that integrates composting, greywater cycling, fertilization, and water conservation all in one raised bed for ultimate convenience and efficiency. It beats the heat and creates an ideal habitat for many crops. I plan to use it for salads and root vegetables but may also use the excess taller wire of my compost bin as a trellis as well!
• A basic rundown for keyhole gardens is that you have a compost bin in the middle that you deposit food scraps and greywater into. The plants' roots will grow towards the water and sap the nutrients as you compost.
I'm combining it with hugelkultur which is basically just putting old wood and other materials at the bottom of a bed to provide a reservoir of water for drought periods. I recommend not adding fresh/live tree trimmings like I did bc it will lower your production for the first year or so, but my neighbor was cutting it down and I'm trying to use waste for my gardening so it sorta happened that way...
• Both methods are especially important in my zone 7b Texas climate. Hugelkultur has worked amazingly for our other two raised beds, so I'll continue to use it when possible. I also mimic it in smaller containers and pots by adding a very thin layer of partially decomposed woodchips at the bottom! :)
