Two weekends, a lot of STUFF and we have a garden. The idea for our "Keyhole" garden came from a work friend of Flip's. An article about these garden adapted for our Texas climate was enough for us to give it a try. We started with a 6' circle in the yard. 1-After moving a half a ton of rock around we dry stacked an 18" high circle to surround our garden.
2-The next step was to line it with 2 layers of corrregated cardboard.
3-In the center we anchored a 12" round and 3' high chicken wire basket.
4-Our first layer of about a bushel of tin cans- these will add air pockets and iron to the soil as they deteriorate (we used ones without the coating on the inside.) Also added here a dozen oyster shells which will add calcium to the soil.
5-A 3" layer of large sticks
6- A "green" layer of cactus pads
7- A 3" layer of leaves.
8- A 5 gallon bucket of wood ash.
9- Two 2.1 cu ft. bags of manure
10- A 3" "green"layer of grass/weed clippings
11- 3" of shredded newspaper & another 3" "green" layer of grass/weed clippings
A little help from a puppy packing it all down!
12- Another 3" layer of leaves
13- The last layer is 4" of soil- We mixed 4-5gallon buckets of good dirt with 2 bags of peat moss.
14- 10 days after planting- we have seedlings of spinach & beets!
9 weeks later we fortified the pen, built a larger chicken run and introduced our babies to their new home. 
