Carrying on from our last post regarding what we throw out and what we keep on site, I thought it a good idea to talk compost. Composting is a remarkable thing, everything you clean up from the garden (minus poop), food scrapings (veggies and grains), fruit cores and skins, old branches or similar is fodder for a compost heap.
With the heat and humidity here, composting is a relatively quick affair, you can throw the autumn leaves on the pile and by the end of the following summer you have a fine mulch, which when mixed in with the soil offers a beautifully rich fertilser for young plants or the veggie patch.
We have 2 composts here, one of which had been abandoned, so we decided to do something different, revive it, and work with a limited space and be resourceful with the water. We found a technique named a keyhole garden.
The garden’s a circular (or square) garden, boxed out with rocks or wood. In the centre stands a basket, this is your composting point. The garden is filled with good quality compost from recently composted to completely decomposed material, bottom to top. The surrounding site is filled with dirt, ashes, manure, leaves and then topped off with rich dirt.
The idea is you throw the compost into the middle and you water just this part, the “keyhole”. This “feeds” the bed with nutrients and also acts as a distribution point for the water. By watering just one spot, you economise water and time.
Before
After
Keyhole
Grow yer own!
In ours we’ll plant some lettuces, carrots, basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, beets, spring onions, green beans and tomatoes. Small batches, co-existing and working to create a pest free environment for the other species.
This is our first keyhole garden, if it’s success, we’ll definitely be doing more of these! It seems a great way to garner a lot of grub, from a very small amount of space.