My No-Cost Keyhole Bed

  I learned about keyhole beds from Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway, an awesome permaculture primer.  The keyhole bed morphs the customary rectangular garden bed into a pleasing circle, with a narrow path to the center.  This layout maximizes the growing space by minimizing the area need for pathways.  I've been wanting to try it out, the berry bushes in the back were begging for some special treatment and they were already conveniently planted in a circular arrangement.
   A large part of my low-cost experimentation consists of gathering materials, so when i say my keyhole bed was no-cost, what i actually mean is that i spent no cash but lots of time.
  Let's get into the process:

• My first step was laying out the circle, which i did by pounding a bamboo stake in the center of the berries and tying another stake to it 6ft away. Then i traced a rough circle through the grass and removed about 6 inches of grass around the periphery.
• Next i began the process of sheet mulching (also called lasagna gardening).  Basically, with sheet mulching you're composting in place to produce friable soil.  There are lots of reasons to sheet mulch instead of tilling.  First of all, tilling is a major hassle, i don't like it.  Second, our soil is a complex ecosystem composed of creepy-crawlies, microorganisms, fungi and nutrients. Tilling disrupts this ecosystem. I prefer the long-term benefits of letting nature work the soil over the short-term benefits of tilling or digging, but of course there is a balance.  I will double-dig some beds once to loosen heavy clay soils if it's needed, but usually it's not if you plan ahead enough to afford yourself a little patience.
•   The first step in sheet mulching is to lay down a layer of cardboard or newspaper.  This helps to kill grasses and weeds by blocking light and it invites our worm friends up from the nether-reaches to feast on the organic material you lay on top.  A warning: don't use cardboard or newspaper with colored inks.  Colored inks often contain traces of toxic substances that can leach into the soil over time.  Blank cardboard is best, black ink is second best (now usually soy-based ink).  I gather cardboard whenever workers in the dairy section of the grocery store are restocking (Saturday afternoon at my store).  Don't be a jerk, ask nicely for the cardboard and take it all, colored ink or not. This saves the workers from having to take out the cardboard, so they'll be grateful, and you don't seem like some sort of yuppie cardboard snob while you're in their way picking out only the cardboard you want.  When you get the cardboard home, remove any tape or glue, cut off blank cardboard from the boxes with colored ink (usually one or two little flaps), and put all the colored ink sections in the recycling.  I've found it's best to soak the cardboard in a pail of water before you put it down. If you use newspaper, you want to lay down 10-15 page thick sections, and definitely soak them or they have a tendency to drift off. 
•   So, i've laid down my cardboard, making sure to overlap lest any beastly grasses should rear their ugly heads.  Now i've gotta start adding organic materials. I start sheet mulches the same way i start compost piles, with a layer of carbon-heavy material like leaves, woodchips or straw.  In this i case i used an oak branch that fell into my yard.  Next i add kitchen scraps, more leaves, grass clippings, anything close basically.  I also tossed in my nearly finished compost. 

 Generally, when you sheet mulch in the fall, you moisten the bed the same way you would compost, so it has the consistency of a wrung-out sponge, then you cover it with black plastic and let it all cook down until you're ready to plant in the spring.  This, however, is an experiment. So instead of covering my little baby, i'm going to continue adding organic materials throughout the fall.
  My keyhole bed is going to be my perennial polyculture experiment, meaning the focus will be on plants that don't require annual plantings (i'll probably have some self-seeding annuals in the mix), all mixed in together.  I've ordered egyptian walking onion bulbs that i'll plant by digging through the mulch and planting in the soil as soon as they arrive and i'll get some medicinal/edible plants like borage, comfrey, bee balm, garlic chives, tarragon...who knows?  This is the bed that will likely determine it's own planting based on what i find when... thanks for coming.
Want one?