The Hills Hoist is an amazing piece of old technology using three natural energy sources to dry clothes: Sun, Wind and Centrifugal Force.
Below the traditional clothes hoist is a little patch of under-utilised garden.In fact, the area can be tricky to maintain by mowing, it often gets trampled, and catches falling clothes. Here is an ideal place for an accessible, intensive, productive, circular food garden. It has a path directly flowing to it, plenty of regular observation from the residents and plenty of sun every day. On very hot days it can enjoy the shade, increased breezes from falling clothes and the occasional drip.
A friend named our little garden patch the “Hills Hoistarium”. It was made using our No-dig Garden method, requiring only edging bricks, cardboard, straw (or aged grass clippings) and seeds. We put small thorny branches on top to discourage birds and we did have to trap and remove snails in the early months, feeding them to our chickens in their mansion. After 8 months we had food! There were Tomatoes, Rocket, Parsley, Rosemary, Pineapple plants, and Amaranth. Amazingly, there were no weeds probably because the bed was so full by spring there was no room left for weeds.