Vita Gardens: My African Keyhole Garden

I have been into gardening for as long as I can remember.  When I was little I forced my brother to plant a vegetable garden with me every year.  This consisted of me having my mom drive me to the store to buy watermelon and cantaloupe seeds as well as a live tomato plant.   When we got home I would drag my brother out to the backyard, dig little holes in the red dirt, and make him drop in the seeds.  I would go out and check on my seeds everyday, but I was not too interested in watering or anything.  By the end of the season we had about two tomatoes and a tiny cantaloupe.  To reward my efforts, my family always took the tomato to a restaurant and had them slice it and serve it to the table... very fancy. 

Fast forward 20 years to my first house.  I spent one summer digging up all the ivy in the front yard and planting a massive vegetable garden, to the horror of all my neighbors.  I got more vegetables than I knew what to do with.  I even got chickens!  Photos of my first garden below.

When we moved into our new house I was so excited that there was space in the backyard!  I no longer had to fly my crazy gardening flag right out in the front yard where everyone could see.  

Earlier this year when I attended the Design Bloggers Conference, I met the team from Vita Gardens.  They were there with their African Keyhole Garden Bed.  It was love at first sight for me.  It's based on African gardening principals and has a compost bin right in the middle to convert the compost and get the nutrients right to the plants.

Source

My Keyhole Garden arrived a few weeks later and we got to work putting it together.

It was easy and intuitive to assemble.  After it was together, we move it to the perfect spot in the yard.

There are very east instructions about how to fill your garden, including this video.

Cardboard and weeds :)

My helper Larry wheeling in some mulch, twigs and old pinestraw.

Some freshly cut grass.

We did not have many sticks around the yard, so we added bark.

The finished product.

After the garden was full, I added in a few established plants and a few seeds.  It's so much fun to go out every morning with my compost and see the progress.  Interestingly, even though I planted a lot of seeds in the ground at the same time as the bed, none of those have sprouted yet.  The ones in the bed are already over an inch tall.  It's a testament to the health of the soil. This was what was happening yesterday.

Compost.

Strawberry plants.

Seedlings alongside a squash plant.

Follow along this Summer to see the results from my African Keyhole Garden :)

P.S. Don't forget the Mignonne Gavigan event tonight at Sandpiper.

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