A few months ago I was strolling through my delightful local park, Myatt's Fields, when I noticed a poster advertising for local people to come to learn how to build a keyhole garden in the park’s allotment (if you haven’t been to Myatt's Fields by the way, I highly recommend it – it’s a real hidden gem buried in the depths of South London, and embodies everything that you might ask for in a park, including a Victorian bandstand where an assortment of bands play live music every Sunday, and a quaint little café called The Little Cat Cafe, staffed by a surprising team of burly volunteers). I have always fancied myself as a gardener extraordinaire (though admittedly this is more of a dream than a reality), and there was something else that made me think ‘that actually might be worth going to.’ It was local. It was only for two hours on a Saturday morning. There was the offer of free tea and biscuits. But most importantly – what is a keyhole garden? I was intrigued.
So I went along to the session, which was remarkably well-attended by a colourful collection of local people: Tim, part-time gardener and manager of the allotment, Svenya, a Polish arts student, lawyer Harry and his seven year old son Tom (who took most of his enjoyment from terrorising unsuspecting strollers in the park with a long branch), Patricia, volunteer and dutiful tea-maker, me, and lots of others whose names I never learnt. And as promised there were plenty of custard creams.
It turned out, in fact, that there were a tad too many of us to build the keyhole garden, because as the name suggests they’re very small, cheap and quick to build, using the bare minimum of manpower and materials. If you’re a Londoner with a garden the size of a small broom cupboard and an interest in ‘growing your own’, the keyhole garden concept might be of particular interest to you. It might also be of interest to people who are seeking a better alternative to the ‘slash and burn’ strategy that the government has thus far favoured in its approach to the financial crisis.
Keyhole gardens have come to our green and pleasant lands all the way from Lesotho, the poorest country in southern Africa, where they were invented in an attempt to tackle the debilitating cycle of environmental and social problems there. In Lesotho, a largely mountainous country, the soil is thin and the weather conditions veer from extreme drought to severe flooding. The country suffers some of the worst soil erosion in the world, and famine and starvation are constant threats. Additionally, the country has one of the highest HIV/ AIDS infection rates in the world, and endemic poverty means that there are not enough people or resources to farm the land productively. And yet it was these hostile conditions that spawned the keyhole garden.
Resembling a keyhole from above, this innovative garden has a wooden tower of compost in the centre which is surrounded by a small ‘cairn’ of soil in which vegetables are planted. Water is then poured onto the compost, which then filters into and fertilises the rest of the soil, creating propitious conditions for vegetable growth. The plants grow at waist height, can be sown without digging, and harvested without bending over, meaning that they can be tended by anyone, including small children and elderly people. In addition, they do not require a lot of water, which means that they can be irrigated using the water from washing and cooking. An average household can irrigate an average keyhole garden, enabling the people of Lesotho to enjoy a varied diet of vegetables, including beetroot, carrots and parsnips.
Aside from the obvious benefits of keyhole gardens to poverty-stricken sub-Saharan communities, they offer an interesting paradigm for Western countries in a time of economic crisis and austerity measures. They keyhole garden exemplifies the potential that can arise from the strategic (re) arrangement of resources, positioning them in complementary ways to ensure maximum efficiency and productivity. Many of our projects at Innovation Unit are similarly about reconfiguring roles, relationships and resources to enable maximum output, developing services that are different, better and lower cost.
Is it any surprise that such a good model for doing things differently, better and lower cost comes from one of the poorest countries on earth? I don't think so. I know from my own summer spent living and working in South Africa that adversity breeds incredible creativity and resourcefulness. Perhaps we should be less fixated on the public sector versus private sector dichotomy that has characterised debates about the financial crisis and how to tackle it, and start to widen our horizons to find the inspiration and ideas for more innovative approaches to the challenges we currently face.
If you are a gardening fanatic with an interest in building your own keyhole garden, follow these easy steps here. You can also read about our Radical Efficiency work here.
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