Made a good start pulling weeds from the African Keyhole bed . This year I will only be growing my Butternuts "Hunter " and "Waltham " and another variety the name of which escapes me .
The idea of the Keyhole bed is primarily to help vegetable growers in more seriously drought stricken areas of the planet .
It is a circular raised bed .
There would be a large pot in the centre where you would water into and the roots of the vegetable plants are forced to reach deep down for the moisture . You can make a woven basket and"shade hat" to go around and over the watering hole in the middle ...to help stop the precious water from evaporating .
The idea is that you can walk in to the centre and pretty much reach all around to tend to the vegetable bed .
I have chicken wire all around mine to keep the rabbits out .
I forgot to cover mine over during the winter months . I remembered a bit too late .
I dragged off the cardboard which normally by now would have broken down . I'll use it somewhere else in the garden .
This took a whole long time of forking out huge thistles , grass , nettles and flaming bindweed !
I have raked in some chicken pellets .
It's not as perfect as I usually do it , but it will have to do for now .
I'll go around tidying the grass and weeds that are tangled in the surrounding chicken wire another time .
The incinerator bin was only put in there to stop it blowing away in the gales .
The Echium is a special one given to me by a friend of my daughter's Jess who grew them from seed . Actually there are three in there and I'm going to leave them where they are and enjoy seeing them bloom .
The rest of the bed is more south facing for the Butternuts anyway .
So there we are , my body is aching , my digging foot and Achilles tendon flaring up again , but I can rest it up now .
See what the weather is doing ..I really want to get planting everything out now .
Maybe more Epiphyllum news tomorrow !
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Water is now the issue, how to save and use it for the best.
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