Our composting keyhole / African garden

Our Composting Garden

After a summer of drought in central Montana we began researching ways to maintain a productive and prosperous garden in extreme weather conditions.  At the same time we were interested in the idea of raised garden beds. Our research led us to the African garden.  A compact and highly efficient composting garden similar to a keyhole garden, one that is often used for flowers, but with a composting element in the center.  We felt that the composting element and the raised bed made the African garden a perfect match for our new composting vegetable garden.  It has taken us two growing seasons to complete and we couldn't be happier with the result. To date this season we have harvested lettuce, radishes, cucumbers, and soon squash and pumpkins as well as sunflower seeds for our bird feeders this fall.

We had a large sandy circular spot in our yard where our kids once had their swimming pool. Both kids and pool were now gone and we decided it would be the perfect size and garden location for our needs. At twelve feet this was much larger than any African garden we had read about. We compensated some by making our composting area larger, four feet across and added a second layer of composting material on the garden area. This allowed for a large garden surface to pant in and a convenient size for composting in.

We started by pounding in t-posts every six feet around the outer circumference leaving them three feet in height. We then put five posts in the center to form a four foot composting center. Next we placed cardboard over the sandy soil that remained from the swimming pool.

We purchased used wire fencing at a local yard sale and attached it to the posts leaving a keyhole entrance into the composting center.

To hold the composting material and soil in the interior of the garden we wanted something that would allow air to circulate and water to escape. We were able to get used large burlap coffee bean sacks for free from a local nursery. The fountains they had ordered in for the season had arrived packed in them.

Now came the difficult part of layering materials to compost and filling with layers of soil. For the first layer we used four to six inch branches that we trimmed out of our trees and  layers of raked leaves and grass clippings more straw, and smaller branches and a second layer of the same. We placed larger branches with the large cut ends butting against the composting center with the smaller end projecting out to the outer edge of the garden. This is so they act as wicks to carry nutrient and water from the composting center to the soil at the outer edge of the garden. This was solid enough that it could be walked on.

   The first layer of dirt came from a local park that was installing new equipment. Again this was free we just had to cover the expense of delivery. At this point we realized the amount of dirt we would need was more than we had antisipated. We added another layer of grass clippings, straw and compost material from our other garden spots.

Our last layer of dirt came from work we were doing around our yard. The garden sat through the winter and that fall we started using the composting area. This spring we added soil from the compost bin into the garden area and planted. We also began weaving willow branches through the exposed wire on the outside not so much for support but for the ascetics of it.