The Keyhole Garden
In the Spring of 2015, we launched what would later become one of our most successful product lines – the Keyhole Composting Gardens. The concept for the Keyhole Garden idea was discovered when researching various gardening techniques across the world. The design originated in Africa where they are built in areas of low rainfall and poor soil conditions. It was an idea that seemed too good to be true: a garden that uses less water, creates its own nutrient-rich soil, and produces much more food than a standard garden. After the products success, we felt responsible to give back to the very continent where we first learned about Keyhole Gardening. How could we share what we had learned with the nation that had first inspired us? One of our team members, Eddie, had connections through a charity organisation called Africa New Life. We got in touch with them and shared our idea, and coincidentally there was another team of people out of Texas, USA with a similar vision of building gardens in Africa. Between both of our teams, we formed the Kageyo Gardens Project with the mission of building 500 gardens by the year 2020. The program became such a success that by 2018, we through a team of hired Rwandan workers have built over 650 gardens, and plan on moving to other villages. The local Kageyo school has reported less health issues, better attention span, and better eyesight just by simply implementing nutrient rich greens (kale and spinach and some local vegetables) into their diets. The school has also since built a larger vegetable garden to support the addition of greens 3 times per week into their daily hot lunches. This experience underlines our motivating belief that “The world needs vegetables”.