Keyhole gardens are a great way to grow veg if you've got a bad back

07 May 2017 - 02:00 By Andrew Unsworth
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A keyhole garden in Lesotho that's built with local stone.
A keyhole garden in Lesotho that's built with local stone.
Image: Andrew Unsworth

Popular in Lesotho, eco-friendly keyhole gardens are a simple idea that works, writes Andrew Unsworth

Driving through Lesotho in the rain, a friend and I took a wrong turning and after a few kilometres of slip-sliding along we were brought to a halt by the sight of the most splendid vegetable garden down the slope that my car seemed eager to explore.

I just had to inspect it, for while every rural home in Lesotho has some attempt at gardening - a peach tree, some maize and pumpkins - this one was more ambitious.

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It was owned by Ntate Ramothepane Tsehla, 78, and his wife Me Manyakallo, 67. They showed me their long beds of maize, spinach and pumpkins, all rudely verdant after good rains. Below were the ubiquitous peach trees: in Lesotho they are not pruned by garden-manual rules, and the branches droop with ripening yellow fruit.

But what caught the eye were three or more strange circular vegetable beds, built up with stones around a void like a slice cut out of a pie.

Spinach and other vegetables bushed out of the beds as if on some market table displaying living plants for you to harvest. After expressing our admiration, we delighted them by buying a bunch of beetroot pulled at request. They had plenty more, and the excess was or could be a source of income.

The building of keyhole gardens is being taught and encouraged all over Lesotho by many NGOs, and the practice has spread across Africa, even to the US. They were reportedly developed as the most water- and energy-efficient way to grow vegetables in the Maluti highlands.

Because of the keyhole, its easy to access any part of the bed, and in the middle of the garden circle is a porous container for compost materials and grey water. As this decomposes nutrients seep into the bed, keeping it damp. The beds are layered with cardboard to smother weeds, then branches, manure, wood ash, compost and topsoil - permaculture gardeners would love it.

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The Consortium for Southern Africa Food Security Emergency is credited with developing the gardens, based on a design that originated with the charity Co-operative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere in Zimbabwe.

But others have also been credited, including the National University of Lesotho, or have claimed credit. In the end many groups were promoting them, and when the Basotho saw how effective they were, they took up the idea.

The need for them arose in the 1990s during the worst days of the HIV/Aids epidemic, because many people did not have the stamina to garden. The elderly liked the fact that there was less bending down. The gardens encouraged people to grow their own food and thus alleviate poverty and malnutrition.

The keyhole gardens in Lesotho are especially attractive because they are built with local stones, and the Basotho know how to build in stone. Other materials can be used, but if you use concrete bricks or breezeblocks line the inside of the beds as many plants dislike their roots coming into contact with concrete or cement.    

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