Keyhole Gardening: a Drought-Tolerant, Compost-Style, Sustainable Concept
The key hole garden concept is quite simple. A circular planting bed (with a “keyhole” to allow access to the center) is constructed with bricks, stone, gabion-style walls, or even aluminum siding. In the center of the keyhole is a circular compost bin in which kitchen scraps and household “gray water” are poured.
Layers of soil inside the circular walls slope slightly outward to encourage positive drainage away from the central compost bin. As kitchen and garden waste breaks down and gray water is added, a natural “compost tea” soaks into the surrounding soil providing nutrients to plants growing within the circular wall. More information and instructions at the link.
Graphics by Natalia Cancer, a graduate of Fine Arts in Lodz, the project is an interpretation of the story “Giants” (“Wielkoludy”), at the Institute of Chemistry, University of Bialystok, Poland, 2010. Her works can be seen in Warsaw, Turku, and other cities in France, Austria and the U.S.
GARLIC CURING SYSTEMS AND CONDITIONS FOR HOME AND SMALL SCALE GROWERS
Properly curing your garlic is incredibly important for future seed quality, optimising natural storage, improving flavour and preventing disease progression.
So what is the best way to do this and what conditions are required to do this well?
Most of us are familiar with hanging bunches - but let’s go a little deeper into the curing conditions and some alternative approaches you may not have seen before.
IDEAL CURING CONDITIONS: 1. Out of direct sunlight 2. Dry air < 55% relative humidity 3. Warm weather 22-27 degrees C 4. Great air movement 1m/sec
Most of us will be challenged by cool weather or high humidity .. and in these conditions, your garlic can’t lose the 30% of weight in moisture and may have problems … even if you have good breezes.
Whilst we’ve usually hung garlic in bunches - having 8-12 bulbs in such close proximity, in poor curing conditions, can often cause problems.
The best curing systems for small-scale home growers and producers are those that allow air movement and space around each bulb and provides ample space between garlic lines to allow good ventilation.
Take a look at the attached photos and see which one would suit you or share your own systems with us.
I particularly like the timber frame and reo-bar system with the tennis balls on the front for safety — the strength of the bars will support the bunches and you can see how the leaves and roots have been trimmed to provide space between the rows.
If your relative humidity is too high (> 60%) … then even using domestic or commercial fans won’t help as the air won’t be able to absorb the moisture that needs to come out of the garlic … and you might have to consider ovens, dehydrators, heaters or a dehumidifier.
Hope this helps everyone. Letetia Ware from Tasmanian Gourmet Garlic
Kleiman compared mango trees at a local farm in Homestead, Florida. One plot of trees had weeds growing around them. The other plot was maintained and weed-free.
The pollinators preferred the trees with the weeds. In turn, the trees benefitted and produced more mangos. In fact, there were between 100 to 236 mangos on the trees with weeds, compared to between 38 to 48 on the trees without weeds.
Kleiman points out findings apply to mango trees, but also to all of the roughly 80 percent of flowering plants of Earth, including fruit trees and all flowering vegetable plants like tomatoes, beans, eggplants and squash. She also hopes this information can help farmers save time and money, as well as reduce the use of chemical pesticides.
I guess it improves the draw for bees and pollinators because there’s more there?
I wonder if this would have a similar effect if instead of simply weeds, it was other plants in general, especially those that flowered?
Regardless, this is pretty damn interesting.
Oh yeah. For example in Japan it is traditional to keep a little patch of forest in lands that were cleared of it. They are called Guardian Forests and serve a bit of a spiritualist purpose, said to be where the local god manifests:
Studies on them have shown that maintaining this patch of local nature increases crop yields in nearby fields. They increase biodiversity, which help pollinators, but also do things you don’t expect immediately - For example, the birds that roost in them help eat rats and mice that may eat crops. By maintaining this natural space, we get helped in many ways, not all obvious
Simply put, biodiversity attracts more biodiversity, and helps nature overall - Including the nature we like to eat. That could be local weeds, or old forests, or whatever else, but it seems as though the central point is that you want some parts of the environment to remain a little natural and wild so they may support that which naturally occurs in the region
Started the squash, corn, zucchini, cucumbers and pumpkins yesterday. I’m going to get a few luffa gourds started as well, those were a really fun gourd to grow and had attracted SO many beneficial wasps to the garden.
I’m a little late this year on pretty much everything but I’ve felt really ok with that this time around. I’ve been growing food long enough now that I know a week or two late and you’re still ok. Most of the time the weather here changes so drastically that being a bit late ends up being a really good thing
Processing our aggressive rooster and our recently acquired duck, as he is also becoming more aggressive as the days pass. I don’t have any issue with the processing of my animals. I provide them an excellent life and unfortunately, this is all part of the deal. I empathize with my children but also try to explain and do things in a manner which is easier for them to understand and come to terms with.
I think at times people can be lulled into this false sense of farm life. Tumblr and Instagram posts of pretty animals, surrounded by long grass and wild flowers aren’t telling the whole story. Whether it be disease or processing, death is an incredibly prevalent aspect of keeping livestock. If you’re planning on getting into this lifestyle that’s an important piece to know and to ultimately respect
If there is a main, single reason, I haven’t been as active as usual over the past period is because of the time I’ve been putting in planning the allotment layout progression for this new year and in preparing the site.
It’s also time to start the first plants indoors, so I thought I’d share with you what I will (try) to grow from seed and what you should expect to see me writing about a few months down the line.
The seeds I will be using come from different sources: some were bought online, some at the garden centre where I work, some were bought or collected by my mum and I in Italy, others are part of my collection of saved seeds and some where left by the previous owners of the allotment.
All this plants are in addition to the plugs I will buy from work for convenience and to the several perennials I have still waiting in pots or dormant in the shed. Altogether, I’ve already planted 150+ different small plants around the allotment, so it will hopefully end up being the biodiversity paradise I’m trying to create.
Coming to the seeds, here’s the list, which I might edit in time:
I was given access to my allotment in August, and at the time it really needed a lot of work to be ready for the new year and the first spring under my hands. I focused on clearing, cleaning, repairing, improving and preparing. There were some neglected small crops when I started, and I got to harvest a few beetroots and some peas. I planted and harvested potatoes and now I’m left with the leafy greens which are still doing great in the sudden snap of cold of real winter.
Under a plastic tunnel spinach ‘Amazon’ F1 and spinach beet (from seeds my mum bought in Italy and sent over to me) are growing side by side in one of my two small raised beds, while the super tasty kale ‘Nero di Toscana’ and ‘Red Russian’ take half of one of the larger ones. Between them there’s some parsley, and I’ve been collecting the chickweed (Stellaria media) and hairy bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta) sprouting and growing in the empty space under the kale.
They all go well together in a lot of the meals we make, but they will come out of the beds in a few weeks, when I’ll be doing the final cultivation to incorporate a second load of compost.
I’ve been buying seeds left and right and have plenty of flowering perennials ready to be planted, now I just need to wait for spring to really transform this place into a piece of heaven. I can’t wait!
In my last post, a reblog from last year, I mentioned the cut conifers to be sold as Christmas trees had started arriving at the garden centre where I work, but together with the trees we also received some visitors.
As of October, ladybugs (Coccinella septempunctata) begin congregating in sheltered places to spend their winter dormancy period, a time when their mobility and activity level are strictly dependant on the temperature, and it seems a large number of them had chosen the dense, evergreen foliage of the Nordmann firs (Abies nordmanniana) to do so. Whenever I would free a tree from its net, shaking it, several ladybugs (as well as a variety of spiders) would fall to the floor, suddenly thrown out of their cosy temporary home.
I collected and placed dozens of them around the garden centre, where they will be valuable allies in my battle against aphids next year, but I also decided to relocate some of them to my allotment. I had one of those boxes sold as “butterfly houses” installed on a south-facing portion of the fence, and I thought it could serve well for the purpose of giving them shelter, so I filled it with some bamboo sticks and placed them inside to see what they would do.
They seem to find it suitable, the following day the box was still full and the majority had climbed up to rest under the roof. If all goes well, they will spend the winter there, and when they emerge they will find the place to be a good breeding site, which will also, inexorably, be filled with food for them.
Aphids, mites and all of you, soft-bodied insects, cower before my army now!
Hello everyone welcome back. I just received my ladybugs and released them on their hunt. They immediately began eating the thrips. I will be releasing a video soon to show the small habitat I’m building for them.
Take a look at the link below to purchase ladybugs for your garden.
