Here is a picture tutorial for making the pots.  I usually make a few at a time while watching TV or chatting with family.  I can usually convince Violet to help out while she is watching a marathon of 30 Rock.

Start with one half of a full sheet

Fold in half and tear along fold

Fold into thirds and tear along folds again

Repeat until you have a pile of strips to make into pots

Lay one strip on a hard surface and line the top of the narrow end to the top edge of your pot maker and roll it up

Should look like this now. This is the under side.

Now fold down the excess paper at the bottom and hold in place....

...and place the bottom part of the pot maker on folded edges and twist back and forth while pressing to crease the paper into place.

A typical seed tray will hold about 9 rows of 4 pots.

Broccoli and Brussels Sprouts in paper pots

I thought about green house plastic but this was too expensive and potentially difficult to install without ripping it.  I also considered  screwing boards onto the run to extend their coop just for the winter, but I wanted them to have fresh air and sunlight.  I needed something cheap, easy to install and take down in the spring, and something that would still allow sunlight and air flow.  Mostly, I wanted to be prepared for something like the 1 ft of snow we got last year.  My neighbor had to dig a path for her chickens so they would come out of their coop!

So, I bought 6 cheap clear shower curtains.  I zip tied them to the top and Jamie nailed scrap wood to keep the bottoms from blowing around.  There is still plenty of air flow and so far the curtains keep the driving rain out so the girls have plenty of dry space to be outside.  Plus, the clear plastic warms the run when the sun is out.  I’m really happy with how it is working out!  I’ll let you know how it works when it finally snows!

North side

Look Ma!  No hands!

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Violet's ready to deliver your order!

The most devastating pest we encountered were bud worms on my calendula plants.   Calendula blossoms are my most widely used ingredient for medicinal salves, lip balms and herbal oils and they typically flourish with an abundance of blossoms all summer. I began watching the plants closely as they began to bud in late spring but began to get suspicious after buds were prevalent for about a week without opening.  At closer inspection, I noticed a tiny hole at the base of the bud, just above the stem.  Then I realized that every single flower bud had been eaten from the inside out!  All of my calendula flower buds were totally hollow!

I went through and picked out all the worms, cut back the plants and started researching.  Budworms, also known as tobacco budworms will overwinter in the soil unless it is a particularly harsh winter.  This last winter was very cold and we had a blizzard which dumped nearly two feet of snow that lasted for several weeks. Even though it was a cold winter, the snow insulated the ground, likely making it possible for the budworms to survive.  Unfortunately, handpicking was not enough unless I dedicated an hour a day to the task.  This wasn’t feasible with a full time job.  A friend told me about Bt, an organic instecticide powder that the worms eat and then die.  The only problem I could find with it was that it does not discriminate between different types of worms or caterpillars, so butterfly larvae would not survive either.  As I watched my calendula plants whither, and therefore my ability to make the majority of my herbal products, I decided to try it.  It actually worked great and I’ve been able to get what I hope is just enough calendula blossoms to make several batches of infused oil.

My neighbor wanted to split an order of meat birds so I used the opportunity to experiment with another no-till garden option.  We built the tractor out of PVC pipe and attached chicken wire to it as securely as possible and positioned it exactly where I wanted my next keyhole bed.  We staked it into the ground with re-bar and covered the top and west side of the tractor with tarps to keep the chickens dry and out of the sun.  I continuously added straw bedding and over the course of about 9 weeks they had created a rich garden bed.  The chickens did a great job scratching up grass, weeds, and fertilizing the soil.  However, the bermuda grass survived.   Looks like I will have to pull that out by hand, but since the ground is no longer compacted, it will be relatively easy to pull up.  If your interested in getting rid of a lawn of bermuda grass, check out my post here:  Food Not Lawns.

After removing the chickens and the tractor, I edged in the entire bed to prevent any new weeds and bermuda grass from creeping in along the edges.  Next I’ll pull out the remaining bermuda grass roots and dig in my keyhole path.  If there is still too much bermuda, I’ll cover this bed with newspaper, manure and straw for planting in the spring. This will help smother the roots and make the soil even fluffier for pulling out whatever nasty roots might remain. Otherwise, a fresh layer of straw will work fine.

For the grass clippings experiment I laid out the bed as instructed in my original post, edged it in for the appropriate shape,  and then began spreading out grass clippings.  I just built the bed by dumping fresh clippings from each mowing so it took about 2 months worth of clippings for a good thick layer throughout the bed.  This worked better than I thought.  The clippings smothered all the grass and various weeds except for a very invasive woody vine called winter creeper.  I will have to remove the grass clippings and pull the vast netting of vine out by hand.  And, because grass clippings by themselves are not that nourishing to the soil, I’ll put a layer of manure down after I dig in the keyhole path.

Since both of these beds will be ready in the spring I have doubled my backyard garden space!  Plus, I only have two more keyhole beds to add for a completed mandala garden!

Violet painted the main body of the coop.  She had fun but she doesn’t look like it here:

Finished coop pics and official pictorial tour coming soon!

A keyhole bed is a circle with a path to the middle and widened into a circle at the center of the bed.  Basically, it is a rectangle curved at the middle to bring together the ends.  It is supposed to be space saving, but I just like circles better than sharp edges. The path into the center is shaped like a keyhole so that you can ideally reach all of your garden from the inside path or the outside of the circle without stepping on the soil.

I am creating a series of keyhole beds that will loosely resemble a mandala garden when I’m finished.  I take my time and build only about 1 or 2 keyhole beds a year.   Here’s how I do it:

Hose, stick, tape measure, string and scissors.

Build your keyhole garden you will need the following:

• flexible hose or suitable substitute for laying out bed
• a stick, pipe or pole to place in the center of the circle
• string to tie to the pole
• scissors to cut the string
• tape measure
• shovel
• lots of newspaper or cardboard
• compost or soil (or do the lasagna method and use leaves, straw, compost, etc…)
• water hose
• straw

Decide on the general area…

String tied to pole

Tie your string to the pole and measure a little over 6ft and cut your string.  I tie a loop in mine so that the edge doesn’t fray.

String stretched from center pole to guide placement of the hose

Lay your hose loosely in a circle around the pole so that it is easier to guide into your more precise circle. Now begin stretching the string to the edge and guide your hose into the circle as you walk all the way around.  This is the general shape and placement of your keyhole bed.

Hose guide in place for digging in edges.

Next, I like to dig in my edges in order to prevent vines, weeds or grass from growing into the garden bed.  Plus, this part of my yard is wet and soggy.  Edging in allows for better drainage and raises my bed slightly.  Follow the hose guide and dig in all the way around the bed.

Edges and part of path dug in (pole is still in the middle)

Now dig in a path from the edge to about 1 foot from your center pole.  My path is quite narrow…maybe 1-1.5 feet wide.  I put the soil from the path and the edges into the garden bed and loosen them up a bit so they aren’t too clumpy.

Full path and keyhole dug into center.

Now dig out the circle in the middle.  I would ideally use mulch to cover my path but all I had was straw and it works fine.

Path covered with straw

Next get all of your newspaper or cardboard and your water hose.  Begin laying your newspaper, overlapping and using several layers at once.  Continuously soak the newspaper and the soil in the bed as you go, especially if it’s windy outside!  Eventually, your whole garden bed should be covered in several layers of wet newspaper…

whole bed covered in wet newspaper.

Now carefully begin moving your soil building materials onto the newspaper, continuously soaking as you go.  This is important to encourage the worms and other soil creatures to eat all the grass and plant material under the paper layer and eventually come up to the top layer.  I just used compost to cover my newspaper.

keyhole bed with compost

Next I watered it in again and covered with straw to suppress weeds on the top layer and to protect the newspaper while it is breaking down.  I also put up barriers to keep the chickens from scratching it.

Would be easier to see the path if it was mulched!