From the outset I knew that my keyhole garden wasn't going to look like the others. I had a minimum of building stone; mostly limestone blocks from old landscaping via Freecycle, a few brick pavers, and some large rocks of varying shapes and questionable utility, having previously occupied the site of the old beds. I spent money on cinder blocks for the keyhole portion of the garden, and then, along with a partial bag of mortar, had a starting materials list.
And so it began, 3/12/2012:
The keyhole notch
The inner wall. How many different types of material can you pick out?
%1 (=Mrs.) wanted a structure that would be 'pretty from the window'. This mishmash of native stone at the top of the circle represents my concession to aesthetics. :-)
Well, about the time the top layer of stone was to be placed, I ran out of mortar. Off to the local building store where I made my first big bungle:
Funny, but I don't see 'mortar' anywhere on the package- what was I thinking?
Check out what happens when you try to use this for cementing stone:
it forms a nice gray cow patty with virtually no adhesive properties, as noted by the imprint of a dislodged building stone. Well, it was too late to return the bag; what needed to happen next?
If you're me, you figure that you have to get mortar out of that bag, somehow- so you start sifting out the stuff that makes it concrete.
A couple of minor bungles later, I manage to lay the last few blocks. After all that effort and attention I'm peering proudly over... a stone Pac-Man 20 inches high.
How do I get it to the required three-foot height?
At the corner of the lot there rests the remains of patio deck, version 1... the best boards of which, it was thought, could re-enter productive use in some appropriate capacity for ourselves or some other intrepid Freecycler. I could cut them to length, stand them on-end inside Pac-Man until they are wedged snugly in by a 'keystone' board at the top of the circle- a palisades-style arrangement.
Took a little extra shimming to tighten the wedge, but hey- it worked! I lined it with broken down cardboard shipping crates (once again, recycling- providing an inner seal, and a source of both moisture retention and biodegradable nutrients) and it was ready to fill with the growing medium.
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