Stone Keyhole Garden

Let's revisit the keyhole garden. On Pinterest someone asked why we would design a garden like this and why does it not look like the keyhole gardens of Africa. Thanks for asking! First off, the keyhole gardens of Africa have a compost pile in the center of the keyhole and are suppose to be self composting. You build the dirt up high around the keyhole compost pile, dump in gray water through the compost pile and then the nutrients seep out in the garden. That's pretty neat but just not what we were going for here.

We are using the keyhole style because 1. It's beautiful! I just love the look of them. 2. It's practical. According to Gaia's Garden, Second Edition: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture,"If we wrap a typical 4 by 15 foot raised bed unto a U shape with a small central opening for a path, we cut the path down from about 22 square feet to 6 square feet. Less than a quarter of the ground is surrendered to paths." Less path space = more plant growing space.

You can reach all sides of the garden from the keyhole path or the outside of the garden beds. As suggested by Permaculture design, you can place the low growing plants you wish to harvest often closest to the path(say lettuce) and the taller plants that you harvest less often (say corn), near the back. Viola!