Re: keyhole beds?

["Marsha Hanzi" <hanzibra@svn.com.br>]

I have had the same experience as Toby: I have also found the keyhole beds
good for urban  backyard situations where space is at a minimum but not that
functional on a larger scale.

At the same time, once you get used to complex garden forms, rectangles seem
somehow "wrong" or "unnatural" to the eye...

We have had fun, in courses, in making complex mandala gardens with other
forms, which sometimes fit into  the space available better than  the
conventional keyhole garden (oval, tear-drop shaped, even a leaf-shaped
garden in a long narrow spot).  The group concentrates on the spot, and each
says what  (s) he feels should be there,in terms of forms, beds, paths,  and
then we make a synthesis.  The results are always beautiful , functional,
and different, one from the other...

As to the projects where serious  vegetable growing takes place ( I mean in
scale...), the people have gone back to making larger( two arm's length
wide), longer beds, but curving them-- has been a practical solution without
offending the eye with  straight lines.  Becomes quite pretty, interspersed
with legume and papaya trees, large bushy herbs, and perennial grasses which
we use as on-site mulch. Also lots of flowers and pretty curvy paths, which
are pleasing to wander around.. The beds are still straight enough to use
perforated  irrigation hoses .  The  guardians ( don't like to call them
"owners") of these gardens are really pleased with them, not only because of
production, but also because they are nice places to be in...

As to keyhole irrigation, I have used perforated  clay  pots in the centers,
planting water-demanding crops nearer, and drought-resistant crops further
away...These I fill up with a garden hose once or twice a week... Works well
enough, but these days I tend more to  abandon the  European vegetables in
the hot dry season, calling on the tropical semi-wild ones to fill the gap.
Much less time, work, and, especially, water...

Marsha


----- Original Message -----
From: Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>
To: permaculture <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Saturday, June 17, 2000 2:02 PM
Subject: Re: keyhole beds?


> Mikal wrote:
>
> > Anybody have opinions on keyhole beds?
>
> I've got a combination of rectangular-raised beds and keyholes, and the
> keyholes get a mixed review from me (which is embarrassing because 3 years
> ago I wrote an article for American Gardener magazine unabashedly
extolling
> their virtues). Since the "hole" is in the middle of a 7 to 10-foot-across
> circle or square, they definitely give you a large, unbroken expanse for
> planting, something I've not read in others' description of them, and this
> allows  for some nice combinations of plants to fit into a small but
> contiguous space. Usually they are sold as a good way to reduce path
length,
> but in actual practice, I've not seen that path area is reduced much since
> often there needs to be access to the _outside_ of the keyhole or mandala
as
> well as the inside.
>
> Keyholes also require a shift in irrigation methods (we have 90-day
droughts
> most summers, a la the Meditterranean). I use T-tape in my rectangular
beds,
> which is very cheap. Since T-tape can't bend, the keyholes need either 1/2
> inch hose with emitters, wound into a spiral, which uses a lot of tubing
at
> $20 per 100 feet (one bed can gobble up 30-50 feet) or a mini-sprayer of
> some sort in the center. As the plants grow I'm constantly having to raise
> the height of the sprayer since it gets buried in the leaves. And a lot of
> crops don't like water on their leaves. Sometimes I just leave the T-tape
in
> place, running it across the paths where it gets trampled. Anyone got
> suggestions for a drip system more suitable to keyholes?
>
> If you've got a circular or square garden on fairly level ground, keyholes
> may work well. I find in a rectangular garden or one on a slope, I'm
always
> trying to get where the keyholes won't let me. One place they've worked
well
> is in my greenhouse, 14 x 24 feet with a central path and keyholes coming
> off the path. I defined the path and entry to the keyholes with cedar
> boards, which keeps things neat, and it's a small enough space to water by
> hand.
>
> >I'm concerned with the
> > idea of "one visit" crops being so far back that harvest requires
walking
> > in the bed.
>
> I set a board on the ground to walk on. This is also why many keyholes
> eventually develop a set of paths on the outside of them.
>
> >What about weeding, mulching, checking drip lines and so on? It
> > seems like these activities will mean lots of trampling unless the whole
> > thing can be reached from paths.
>
> Make the bed small enough to reach across much of it easily; it's common
to
> make them too big. In general, I like keyholes for small quantities of
mixed
> species. For big production crops, I've returned to rectangular beds.
>
> Keyholes are a bit like the other whiz-bang garden idea in Pc books: herb
> spirals. On a tour of about 20 Pc sites, I saw 5-10 abandoned or overgrown
> herb spirals for every one I saw in use (I just tore my own out a few days
> ago). Anyone else found this?
>
> Toby
>
>
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