What are we going to do?
We live off-grid, on a mountain side in the high desert of far west Texas, since December 2007, we have embedded ourselves quite deeply in our little community, one of the issues out here is getting rid of refuse, we have turned that to our advantage, the community out here knows, if they have any potentially useful junk, they contact us first to see if we want it. The alternative is to take it to town, some 20 miles away and pay to dispose of it. As a result, we end up with lots of useful materials, it’s not like driving to the hardware store and getting first quality, new stuff, but we end up with things we can eventually use.
One of the local builders out here (who is also a good friend) was tasked with getting rid of a bunch, a huge bunch of papercrete blocks on another property out here. These are made of pureed paper and Portland cement, there is also some other material in the bricks, I recognize perlite and possibly Styrofoam pellets.
Whoever made these, made a bunch of them for some purpose and for whatever reason, never got to use them. So now we benefit from this windfall.
PB took possession of them without knowing what he might use them for, perhaps making a short (height) wall… I took one look at the stack and had only one idea, a Keyhole garden!
I had been wanting to make at least one Keyhole garden ever since I’d learned about them, our biggest resource out here for making such a thing is rocks, I just hadn’t had the time or will to collect that many rocks and make one, but now we have an abundance of these papercrete blocks and can make several Keyhole gardens, I even have PB excited about it.
I have lots of cardboard to use as a base layer, the benefits of being a merchandiser and more recently being a reviewer. If anyone is interested in learning more about becoming a reviewer, let me know in the comments below and I’ll do a write up about it.
PB and I are already talking about what to play the in the Keyhole garden, I want one just for salad type greens, lettuces of all sorts. Of course we will have to protect it from the critters, they constantly eat our food and decorative plants, but it’s part of living out here.
I’ll post updates as this happens.