Their beauty and functionality make these gardens an asset to anyone wishing to create a kitchen garden.
If you have some space in your home and have been wondering what to do with it, then you should consider creating a mandala garden. Apart from its beauty, in this kind of garden, vegetables are planted in circles on the ground, which saves on space and ensures that it is used to maximum efficiency.
The circles have small pathways in between them where a farmer can walk through as he tends to his crops without stepping onto the beds. This ensures that the soil remains soft, and well-aerated with no compaction.
Mandala gardens have been used for centuries as they provided a good place for meditation. Today, with the same concept, you can create a beautiful garden filled with a variety of vegetables that can provide food for your family, with little resources.
How to make a mandala garden
Just like any kitchen garden, you want to locate it in an area that is not exposed to adverse weather conditions like waterlogging and harsh winds, and also close to your kitchen for easier harvesting.
Consider the slope, size, and run-off water patterns when designing your circular garden. Draw on the ground a plan of how you would like your garden to look. Create a circle in the middle from which paths will emerge, which will resemble the spooks of a bicycle. Depending on the size of your garden, the paths could be about four meters wide and the beds in between also be four to eight metres wide. The paths will enable you to reach both the inner and outer half of each bed from the inner and outer footpaths of the garden. Mandala gardens are sometimes referred to as key-hole gardens, as the paths mimic the shape of a door’s keyhole.
Organic farming encourages less tilling. This can be done by building your beds without any tilling. Simply add mulch and compost onto the marked out beds without disturbing the soil. This is called sheet mulching and such non-dug raised planting beds are rich in beneficial micro-organisms.
To do sheet mulching, wet the area where you want to set your garden up. Cut the weeds and plants but leave them on the ground. Add materials that will attract microorganisms to help in decomposition. Add card boxes and newspapers, papers from old school books etc and then wet them. Follow with another layer of nitrogen-rich materials. Add about 20cm of additional mulch, for example, dry leaves, grass, and about 5cm of compost soil to top it all up. This will create an un-dug raised bed, rich in nutrients, on which you can plant your crops. Create boundaries using different materials for example wood planks, stones, or bricks to mark the edges of your garden.
What to plant:
Give some thought to the plants that you want to establish in your garden. Practice mixed cropping to improve plant diversity and include natural pest repellents like herbs to chase away plant pests. Plant vegetables like sukuma wiki (kales), lettuces, tomatoes and so forth, taking care to ensure that complimenting crops are arranged next to each other. Some crops, when grown together, improve each other’s health and yields. Others will attract beneficial insects that will protect a companion. Certain plants also act as natural supports to their companions (like maize and beans), while plants that require similar nutrients will struggle to get enough for themselves making them less healthy. Crops such as peas and beans add nitrogen to the soil, which can be used by the crops growing next to them.
Include fruits trees for shade (usually planted in the middle of your garden) or create a small pool of water. Plant flowers on the edges of your garden to attract pollinators. Add natural mulch plants like strawberries or legumes which will cover the soil and protect it from over-exposure to the sun and act as mulch.
Consistently water and weed your garden and ensure that you use only natural methods to control pests and diseases, and your kitchen garden will thrive.
A well-planned mandala garden can provide your family with a variety of organically grown crops. Its beautiful shapes and colours are also attractive to children, an attribute that you can use to attract and teach your children more about farming.