fall gardens

Walk to End Alzheimers
click here to donate or join 
the organicgreendoctor.com team

click here to find your local walk 

FALL GARDEN
this weekend i watched this segment on the keyhole 
garden that was on pbs klru central texas gardener
with dr deb tolman
watch it and youll want to go put yours in 

yep it was impressive
you can watch it by going online to their website

ive used her principles at my house and also at 
the school where my wife she works

as mentioned before we took all her soil from her two
square foot gardens and solarized it this summer
to get rid of the bermuda grass
we then made a 5 ft square foot garden with a 
central composter 
the bottom of the bed is lined with several layers
of newspapers
we added good organic soil from the natural gardener
in austin 
it has several manures compost green sand and all the 
good bugs you need
its ready to plant when you place it in your beds

we then added another layer of concrete blocks 
her soil depth is now about 2 feet
we may add another layer this spring

she and her students planted kale spinach arugula asian greens
oregano swiss chard multiplying onions cilantro garlic chives 
when it gets cooler she will add lettuce more spinach carrots
beets garlic strawberries and broccoli 
this winter she will add potatoes and green onions 

she and her students and fellow teachers will eat out of 
this keyholeless square foot garden all fall and winter 
and spring

sometimes hands on education is important for kids
some have never planted anything 
many of these kids are at risk

good job guys
more pictures later as it matures

in my garden here i have a circular keyhole garden
that i have 4 tomatoes planted in it
i am going to let them sprawl over the garden like
nature intended them to and see what happens

just under that 6 inch layer of fresh hill country garden soil
is a mixture of shredded newspaper shredded cardboard 
paper leaves chicken manure compost from my chicken
composter and anything else i can find that will safely 
decompose in my garden

it should all heat up and decompose into this rich garden soil

later in january this will be the site where i will plant all of my 
potatoes

in my regular garden with its 4 ft x 12 ft beds i have planted
partially my winter garden 
i will plant the same things my wife she planted in her garden 
and will nurture it over the winter until the spring
it will then be converted to my hot summer garden 

we rarely buy much for our salads during the fall and winter
as we harvest what we need from this winter garden

this is a picture from the natural gardeners square foot garden 
their plants were planted earlier this month
you can see how nicely it has filled in the spaces

this is what my wife she and my garden will look like in 
the next 3-4 weeks

remember
fall and winter is the best time to garden in central texas

the organicgreen doctor

keyhole square foot garden

KEYHOLE SQUARE FOOT GARDEN
whats a keyhole square foot garden

well i made it up
i took the ideas from the keyhole garden and combined it
with the ideas of a square foot garden

what comes out of this is a keyhole square foot garden

mel bartholomew is the god of square foot gardening
i have three of his books
the first is dated from the 1980s and i have his latest update
version of his book square foot gardening

here is his website for the square foot gardening foundation
which promotes square foot gardening nationally and internationally
and
here is his blog the mel bartholemew blog

the idea is simple
you can garden anywhere
in an apartment in the city in the country in a high rise etc
build a 4 ft square frame and add good dirt
and then add plants
its that simple
he has a mixture he recommends internationally and nationally
but a local source of his soil for the area where i live is the lady bug brand
of square foot garden soil-a mixture of coir fiber and vermiculite
to hold moisture and five different composts

i recently wrote a blog on the keyhole garden method that is
being promoted especially in africa and other areas using
local rocks and materials to build a circular raised garden with a
central composter and with a pie shaped wedge cut out of the
circle so you can walk into the composter and reach the middle
of the garden
it has been a very successful method of gardening in these foreign
countries
here is a reference to an article on keyhole gardening and my blog
reference

so i had the idea of taking the features of both methods and combining
them into a method i call the keyhole square foot garden

here it is

at the habitat for humanity house i am working on my wife and i
donated a garden to the new home owner
we recently met with her and the three of us put in her new garden

heres how we did it

first we located a site that gets at least 6 hours of sunlight
this one gets some late afternoon shade

we scraped off the top layer of soil
since the soil is deep at her site i opted to dig out 6 inches of her
soil then added this 4 foot square frame of left over 2x6 untreated lumber
dont use treated wood
use cedar or rock or concrete blocks or untreated lumber
so we then have a space thats 4 ft x 4 ft x 1 ft deep

i elected to go to my nursery i like here called the natural gardener
they are the ones that makes mels square foot garden mix for this area
it probably takes 3-4 bags to fill a 6 inch deep garden as mel usually
recommends

i opted to use their hill country soil instead which is the best garden
soil made as it has several types of compost in it granite sand
all the bacteria and fungi needed for plant growth
just dump it in and plant the stuff

we lined the bottom of the hole with cardboard recycled from the
construction site and cut a hole in the middle for the composter
that was made from left over chicken wire and concrete wire
it was placed in the center of the space and was placed it another
6 inches in the ground
its total height was 4 ft (guess that would make this is a cube foot garden)

the bottom was then lined with 10 sheets of newspapers
just trying to keep out all of those dang weeds and also provide
food for all those worms we want to attract to the garden

next the 4 ft square frame was placed down over the composter
there are 1 ft squares marked off on the frame using wire stretched
across the frame
this makes it easy to plant things in 1 ft squares

then we dumped that good old soil in there and we were ready to plant

in the composter we placed layers of chicken poop compost thanks
to my girls at the country n  of compost from the natural gardener  of
oak leaves  of shredded newspapers and added a bananna peel on
top to top it off
shell add compost material over time from her kitchen from mowing and
from leaves as they fall
all she adds is water to keep it moist

later we will add 2 ft path around the square foot frame using
plastic to block the weeds and addi crushed granite on top of the plastic

we planted these items in her garden-two tomatoes malabar spinach
oregano leeks mulitplying onions swiss chard arugula beans basal
bell pepper banana pepper jalapeno pepper and egg plant
nice garden choices huh
this fall late she will add a winter planting to this area

we then added bird netting over the pvc frame we placed to protect
against varmints
that squirrel sat on her fence and licked his chops
at 48 hours he has not attacked yet

now we have the new invention
the keyhole square foot garden
a self contained garden
just add water and compost material and love

will update pictures as the garden grows

the organicgreen doctor

keyhole garden

KEYHOLE GARDEN
my cowgirl sister in law sent me an article on how to
do a keyhole garden
i had not heard of that before
i read the article at this link on keyhole gardening

basically you lay out a circular garden of  8-10 feet
in the center you do at least 1 foot circle
this is where you will place a cage for your compost pile
then you lay out a wedge of the circle like a piece of pie
cut out of a pie

then you do the sides of the garden with stone bricks etc
also lining the pie wedge
you fill the garden with dirt compost newpapers etc

in the center circle you add things much like you would
in a compost pile grass clippings, dirt, leaves, newspapers,
kitchen veggie scraps putting it in layers

when you get through you have a circular garden with a central
compost pie with a pie wedge that you can step into to work
on your garden and to get to your compost pile


when its viewed from above it looks like an old keyhole

this method is used in africa and countries where there is
a scarcity of food and of water
they use whatever materials they can find
rocks straw cow dung etc
and are able to raise food for their families
the stones are high enough usually 3 ft to keep the
cattle from getting in the garden

i couldnt stand it after reading this article
i had to build me a keyhole garden

i had an old circular water trough that was rusted out on the
bottom  and moved into my yard
i filled it with composted garden soil that i had stored on my
property-was good garden soil mainly hill country soil from
lady bug or the natural gardener-they had already done all the
work on the soil
all i have to do is keep it going with the addition of compost as
i need it

in the center i put a 1 foot circular roll of old chicken wire i had
in the center i filled it with leaves manure my compost i had made
and barnyard compost from the natural gardener
i then watered the compost well to get things started

i then laid out a pie wedge leading to the center compost pile

over time the goodies will diffuse out into the circular garden
i will keep the center compost pile watered and the
plants watered as needed

in the garden portion i planted
lettuce onions swiss chard kale broccoli cilantro arugula asian greens
spinach and fava beans to climb over the wire compost bin
later this spring i will plant basil and malabar spinach there also
the chard kale arugula and onions will last into the the summer

this summer i will work on getting my soil to taper down from the
circular compost pile out to the edges of the garden

except for the plants i bought to plant here i already had all the
supplies to build this
key hole garden



this should work great for small areas limited for space
think of it as a circular raised square foot garden with a
compost pile in the middle and a wedge to walk into the middle

will report my produce reports later this year

the organicgreen gardener