Markus Tanz

Wow, that is allot of information, thank you so much!
Just working myself through all the links, than I probably gonna have more questions.

Like already mentioned in the comments, using a 400m² plot "only" for production may not have the best effect.
Means, parts of a plot should stay "wild" or untouched to get the best effect on the climate?

To come back to the video of David Fisher:
One topic is, that a single garden wouldnt change enough of course - so it needs thousands/millions of these plots to have an effect, right?
So, how to bring the idea of local food production and enviornment awareness to the "masses"?

Most of the people I know, love the idea of local, fresh, biological food - but depending where you live, they end buying industrial food because of lack of time, money and supply and demand mainly.
So the biggest "problem" I see is, how to make it available (to get involved in sustainable gardening and to buy products that are produced that way) for not only enthusiasts but for the neighbour next door.

A video that inspires me allot is the following:


They also talk about "community life" in the David Fisher video.
And I think, that could be the key to get more and more people involved into projects like that.

To not just create food production, but offering education, entertainment, art, environmental awareness, etc.

I am working on a project in Portugal that started with a garden 2 years ago.
It is an abandoned space from my neighbours and I was allowed to work on it (you can see in my other posts the question about the keyhole garden, its that space).
Since I was not able to handle that plot on my own, I asked friends and neighbours if they would like to help a little bit.
It was not just productive in form of making that place beautiful and produce veggies, but specially in creating deep, beautiful friendships with persons, I never talked or saw before.

And it created a chain reaction - suddenly friends of friends came to help and enjoy the "Garden next Door".
Not only working but also sitting together, building a little outside kittchen to make meals, creating an area for our kids to explore, encourage our older locals to join and enjoy, inviting "experts" in areas like gardening, building, energy, etc.

Thank you again for all the input!
Markus

Hi Permies,

if have a very general question and I am aware, its difficult/impossible to find one answer.
But maybe you can help me to get a direction.

Since the average size of a garden ist quite different around the globe, I thought it could be good to picture the size with something we all know - like a handball field (800m²), tennis court (260m²) or something similar.
I go for the middle with 400m², even when the statistics I found in google differ allot for an averaged sized garden.

The question is:
How could a 400m² area have an impact on the climate/ecosystem.
Means, what could be done on a 400m² area, to activly intervent in the ecosystem to create better air, better soil, less bad pollution, water saving, food production, etc.
Actually, I want to create an idea, how 400m² can become a real green footprint.
And how not only one, but hundreds of that 400m² areas could have an impact on the climate/ecosystem.

Since there are so many way to improve the quality of the planet, I am super curious, what techniques could seriously help.

On http://sustainablefootprint.org/terra-preta-catching-carbon/ they say the following about adding biochar into the soil:

   Enhanced plant growth
   Suppressed methane emission
   Reduced nitrous oxide emission (estimate 50%)
   Reduced fertilizer requirement (estimate 10%)
   Reduced leaching of nutrients
   Stored carbon in a long term stable sink
   Reduces soil acidity: raises soil pH
   Reduces aluminum toxicity
   Increased soil aggregation due to increased fungal hyphae
   Improved soil water handling characteristics
   Increased soil levels of available Ca, Mg, P, and K
   Increased soil microbial respiration
   Increased soil microbial biomass
   Stimulated symbiotic nitrogen fixation in legumes
   Increased arbuscular mycorrhyzal fungi
   Increased cation exchange capacity

In that particular case it would be interesting to know, how statisticly 400m² (or parts of that area) could have an impact on the climate when biochar/terra preta is added.

There are so many fantastic ways to improve a little area and make a positiv impact for the planet.
Are there ressources that could help?

I want to use that data, to visualize in a 3D animation how one and how hundreds of gardens would have an impact.

Thank you very much and if you have questions, please let me know.

Markus

Miles Flansburg wrote:Howdy Markus, Depending on what type of tomato that you are planting, I always consider that they will grow upwards more than horizontally. I plant them about two feet apart and build a cage around them for verticle support.

Hey Miles,
https://youtu.be/hobrYWufEN0
At minute 04:30 Dr Deb Tolman is taking about 70 tomatoes.
That sounds quite not possible...

I have all kinda tomatoes.
From 1 m till 3 m.
I thought, best would be to put in medium size, otherwise it would be hard to maintain... our i have to prune the plants.

Hey everyone

Last year I build a keyhole garden in Portugal and this year I finaly have the chance, to test it.
Since I have a lot of tomatoe plants, I wonder, how close can I plant them in the keyhole garden?

I once heard in a video of a texas keyhole garden expert, that you can have the plants way closer than in a normal garden.

Anyone has experience with tomatoes in the keyhole garden?

I have all kinda sorts but would love to try out a big variety - and of course other veggies, too!

The garden is more or less 2,6m in the diameter and made with stones.
Today I added some more soil than you can see on the pictuer below.
Its full of life since over the winter the amount of earthworms and other little animales exploded.

Thanks alot in advance for you answers!
Markus

Ps: that was my previews post about the keyhole garden:
https://permies.com/t/146674/Keyhole-garden-materials

Hey,

I gonna add some more pictures of the progress, but here is a little tour through the garden showing the keyhole garden with a dry stone wall.
Sorry for the many "aehms" and bad english, I will improve the next time!
I would love to hear critics what I could make better for the next keyhole garden, since we defenitly wanna build one (or two) more - tons of stones to go.

https://youtu.be/FAeXI9e4l60

Happy gardening,
Markus

So. Some more hours, than the mulch is ready.
Friend helping me with his machine.
Cannot wait to get that place clean and build the first keyhole garden.

Btw. Shall I keep the progress here in that topic or create a new one? Something like a work in progress post.

I also wanna show you some progress.
That's day one of cleaning that space.
And it's funny to see that "ant" -style.

https://youtu.be/9LJtHzPrnuw

edit:
Progress of creating mulch from the cutted trees and bushes.

Here are some more pictures.
Sand, wood and tiles. The sandy soil is what we have here.
The wood is how most of the beams look like.
Tomorrow I get the machine to shredder the pile of branches.

Eric Hanson wrote:Welcome to Permies Markus.

A keyhole garden is a great way to start, but your sandy soil makes it a challenge.  Many people who grow keyhole gardens do so by making it a raised bed garden, sometimes raised up about 2 feet (about 60 cm).  Is there any chance you could build a wooden frame for the bed?  You do mention that you have some 100 year old boards laying about.  Perhaps those could be used to create the raised edges.  Once the edges are built, you can fill with a combination of sand (preferably darker sand--you may have to dig a little to find if) and organic matter.  If you can find any clay, mix that in as well.

But regarding the branches and wood you have lying about.  I see no reason you could not incorporate the wood into the soil itself if you wanted to so long as it has not been treated with any chemicals (and you seem pretty certain it has not).  Any branches from the trees can also be used.  Personally, I like to break the wood down to smaller pieces, but this is not strictly necessary.

If you were so inclined, you could fill the beds with wood chips and break them down with mushrooms (I like to use Wine Cap mushrooms).  I personally like to trim my bushes and collect the branches.  When I have enough I rent a wood chipper and turn the branches into chips which go in the raised garden beds and get inoculated with mushroom spawn.  This will take some time, but the resulting compost is amazing.  My mushroom compost is far more fertile than any soil I have ever had.  If you do try this, given your heat and aridity, I would think that winter would be the best time.  But I don't really know your specific climate all that well, and I am thinking that you would want to sow mushrooms when you have the longest period of soil moisture.  If you are still interested in this option, I can point you to some threads on Permies that detail how to make mushroom beds.

But if you want to try using your own soil, then by all means do so.  I would advise mixing layers of sand/soil and woody branches, green foliage and those boards if you are really interested.

One final note about those boards though.  If they lasted 100 years more or less intact, something is preventing rot and decay.  Do you know what species they are made from?  Hopefully they will rot in contact with soil and soil microbes, but I would want to be sure of this before I buried them as I would not want to have a rot resistant board buried in my garden soil.  But ultimately, this is your call.

Markus,  I know I have dumped a lot on your plate, but I am trying to help with some ideas, not so much with specific instructions.  I hope this is helpful, but if you have any questions, please feel free to ask and also, please keep us updated.  This is an exciting project.

Eric

Hi Eric,

thank you for your detailed answer! :)

Yes, I definitly was thinking about a rasied keyhole garden.
So not just on the ground, but using the bricks and other material to build a keyhole frame (to a hight that working is more easy, too) and than fill that with the tiles, wood beams, old card board, some of the smaller, rusty metal parts, branches (I can have a machine to make them small as you mentioned), etc.

But since the ground is very sandy (I will make some pictures later to show), I was thinking about using something to keep the water from flowing away.
Yesterday I was watching some videos from Dr. Deb Tolman and the way, she is building the keyhole gardens.
As far as I understood, with her method she tries to keep the keyhole garden as moistured as possible and also seals the frame to get a hot climate inside the garden.

I am very interested in the mushroom technique, never heard about that!

About the beams - beside the ones that are still on the walls (the big ones you can see in the pictures), everthing is already quite rotten and can be broken by hand.
Also the big beams are not perfect anymore and have signs of rotting away since there is no more cover from a roof.

The big beams on the walls are quite stable, but you can also see lots of signs of the rain and the rough atlantic climate.

So I guess, there maybe was some kinda protection, but not the chemicals you get today to protect the wood.

Thank you again for the detailed answer! :)

Markus

William Bronson wrote: Hello Markus, and welcome to Permies !
That is beautiful place you have there,  with lots of potential.

Hey William,

thank you for answering! :)

Yes, that piece of garden is a hidden paradies, instantly fall in love with it.
And 2/3 is almost all day long with sun - at the same time there are some places with shadow.

On the top-down pictures in the right bottom area with the tree, is a beautiful place with old mill stones reused as tables.

Since the place wasnt used for so many years and nature found its way back, the soil at some places is not to bad.
But as soon as I dig a little bit, its sand only.

Yes, I already have sources for manure and they are happy to give it away.
And something here in my area that I dont understand - there is no extra container for green waste.
So everything goes away with the normal trash.

My neighbours know about the project and I asked them, to collect or bring the vegetable "trash" to my place.

Yeah, I also think the wood is gold for the keyhole garden.
Its very old, rotten and no sign of chemical paint or so.

On the upper-middle space you can also see a big pile of bricks.
Thats the next area to clean and see, what we find.

Sadly for years some people used that place to remove there plasic and mixed trash.
We found tons of bags with plastic and other trash.

Anyway, we slowly see how much space we got there and with the help of some friends, we gonna create a little paradies to grow, chill and meet/eat. :)