How to Turn Your Lawn into a Vegetable & Cut Flower Garden (Part 2)

And now it is time for us to do some planting. So in part one, we measured, marked out, and leveled the space. We placed the beds and stained the wood. We filled the beds and installed my favorite Nicole Arch trellises. We placed irrigation in the beds and placed the cut flower plants on either side. Then the plants arrived for the kitchen garden and today we're gonna show the process of finally planting up these raised beds. All right, so the first thing we do is add up how many of each plant that we have and then divide it by the beds. So I've got 10 herbs, 10 rosemary, 10 thyme, and 10 sage. And so that means by four beds, I can put at least two in each bed. And then we can come back later with our extras. But this allows me to kind of plan out how to lay out the plants in the garden. All right, so we've got two and two. I think I'm gonna do all thyme in the corners and then we'll do rosemary. Well, actually, you know what? I'm changing my mind. I think I'm gonna do rosemary in here and then we'll switch and do this thyme. That way there's a little bit more variety when you're looking down this path. I wanna think about what it'll look like to view the whole garden. So we'll have thyme here and then I'll add two thyme here. So that gets us to two herbs per bed. And then we'll come back and add the extra. Once we're all done, we can kind of figure out where everything goes. So what I do for any of this when I'm doing a planting plan is you kind of have your ideal and then you have your reality. And so you have your planting plan and then you have what you actually can find at the store or what grew or what did well. And then you just adjust. So I've got a couple more herbs I'm gonna grab and some flowers. So what I'm doing is laying out. You're welcome to join me if you want to. I was explaining how I add up how many of each plan I have and then I divide it by the beds so that it's evenly dispersed. Makes sense. So we've got 10 of a lot of these flats. So I'm doing like two per bed. So I just took these and then we'll have two leftover. So at the end, you and I can go in and like fill in the blanks. Okay, perfect. So that there's as few as possible. And how does this work? Are the sprayers here? These are drip. So it's gonna lift the little holes. So it's a slow emitter. You'll have it run for a long time. Cause they just, it's like in a spray situation, you're getting gallons per minute. Got it. And in a drip situation, you're getting gallons per hour. Okay. So it's way slow. It's gonna feel like, is that thing still on? And you're gonna be like, yes it is because it has to. So it'll just drip, drip, drip. So I'll put this here. I'll get the next set. Oh, actually you can do the Gumprina. Okay. You like pink the most. I do. So I was thinking we could do pink in the front. So in the same way that I've done this on these insides, I was thinking we can go on either side of the stage. Perfect. And then we'll do the same thing on that bed. Okay. Let's go on the back. All right, so put those there. And then we have two left. So you can figure out where you wanna put these two. And we've got one more, we've got one more set of marigolds. And then we have some cilantro. And then that'll about be our herbs and then we'll start doing the vegetables. I like to lay everything out first. And then, you know what I'm gonna do with the cilantro? I'm gonna save it for the end because it's so hot. Okay. Yeah, see the poor little guys just- I know, we were trying to put some water on them. They'll pop back, but. Okay. These could go on the ends. Yeah. So we've got, we could do- This way or this way? What do you think? Yeah, I would almost put them in the middle here. Oh, right. I gotcha. On this side, okay. A mirror of it. No, I think I like them over here better. Okay. I think I like two on this side. Great. The world is your oyster, Allison. You just- I can make a decision, you know? Nothing's permanent, right? All right, here we go. Place those two similar places. And then we'll put these two over here. Okay. And then we've got two, four more. And these are annuals? Yeah. Okay, so these will be done. Yeah, so what I like to do is perennial herbs. Okay, perennial herbs. Annual flowers. Okay. So those marigolds can come here. Okay. Annual flowers, like something like a red becky or echinacea. It doesn't need a raised bed to grow in. It will grow in the ground. And so this is like prime real estate, right? Right. And so I saved this, but I like the annual flowers in here because it helps with pests. Okay. It helps with pollinators. Okay. It makes it pretty. Yeah, it does. But it's not gonna take it over. Okay. So yeah. So then they're going to just die naturally as frost. And then I'll just pull those out. Yeah, and then you could switch to violas, pansies. Any of the frost proof flowers will last all through the winter. So my pansies, it's like, I look at it and my whole beds are dead, but the pansies. But they're living. And I'm like, if there's ever a misnomer, like, do y'all remember when people call you a pansy? Oh, true. And it was like a mean thing. True. I'm like, call me a pansy any day. All right, so that's close to the border. Okay, I love it. We could plant this all in and then come back and start putting the vegetables in. Does that sound good? It does. Okay, so both of these, all these can get really big. So you will have to prune them back for them not to take over. I was thinking of doing whole beans up your trellis. Okay, I like that. So what I'd like to do is a row of big plants right down the center here and there. So we could do, the cabbages are probably gonna be prettier. Okay. The broccoli is gonna be bigger. So my thought was to do broccoli in the back, cabbage in the front. Yep. Does that sound good? And how many do you think we need? So we'll probably do like four per bed. So from this stage to having a mature plant. How long? Forever. You're gonna have great grandchildren by then. Just kidding. Perfect. 90 days at least. Okay. Maybe 120. So that's why we plant them now. Okay. And these are frost resistant too? These are, these are frost more, they're like, yeah, frost tolerant. Okay, frost tolerant. Oh no, frost resistant. They like literally will resist. All right. So what I wanna do is I'm thinking through like, we wanna think of a large plate. Okay. So I'm thinking like one hole here for your first and one hole here for your second. Okay. Okay, and then you're just gonna bury it. All four or one? One at a time. Okay, one at a time. And right to the neck. Yep, exactly. And then we'll just pinch off these lower leaves. Yeah. And then you can come back and kind of mound around like that. So you're growing this not for the production, for the experience. And I have to remind people of that. Like, you're gonna get one broccoli head off of this. Off of this? Okay, one off of each plant. Well, that's plenty. I don't think I need more. Yeah, so I think if you want it, we could do four. Okay. Basically what I would do is just slide this down just a little bit. So they're kind of, and I think I'm gonna go right here so that we have room for like carrots and greens and stuff. Is that okay? So here for this one then? Or you just want to do one more? Yeah, come forward. Like come this way. And then that way it's a little bit staggered. I took your Hori Hori, here you go. No, you took yours. Oh, okay. So you go about to the handle and then you give it a nice little, and that really helps support it so it doesn't flop over. Okay, we can do the same thing on that bed. The cool thing about broccoli and cabbage that most people don't know is you can eat every part of it all the time. Really? So just because the cabbage hasn't formed like a head yet, doesn't mean you can't cut a leaf and put it in a salad. And just because- Okay, I did not know that. Just because the broccoli hasn't formed a head yet doesn't mean you can't make a smoothie or a salad with the broccoli leaves. And then- You can make a wrap. I mean, it's going to taste healthy. I'm not telling you. I'm not telling you it's going to taste like Chick-fil-A sandwich or anything, but it's a way to- It's nutrients and like a filler. So I love like the crunch of a cabbage leaf. So like if I'm eating like a really soft spring mix salad, I love having a couple of like crunchy leaves with it, crunchy cabbage leaves. So- Very uneducated question. Yeah, it's going to- Does it start to form? Okay, so it starts to form in there, in the salad. So what will happen is like, it's a good question. What will happen is all these leaves, these won't be part of the head, right? Because it's already- So they're photosynthesizing, getting the energy, but it's going to be forming the heart. Okay, so it's going to start like a tiny knot and then eventually get bigger and bigger. Yeah, they'll just fold, fold, fold. And it's always- The cool thing, you can't see it. It's growing from the inside. So the new leaves are right in the middle, pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. Yeah, it's raining. But yeah, it's going to take forever. And just so you know, sometimes I don't get a cabbage head. I just get cabbage leaves. And that's just what happens. All right. We're ready for seeds now. This is fast. I will move you to snap peas later. Okay. But for right now, what we're going to do on the trellis is pull beans. Okay. And we're just going to plant seeds to try to get you beans before frost. We're going to make like a little trough like this. Okay. And then we'll just plant seeds in it. I'll get them to you. How far apart? Sometimes I like to do that without a glass. I'm going to take both of them. I would do one like every four inches. Okay. And don't bury them yet. Cause then you'll be able to like, I like to see where everything is before I bury. Testing my ability to eyeball four inches. Four fingers is good. Oh, well, there you go. Are you good? Yeah. Now I did a row right behind. You might have to move the irrigation. So as soon as these are done or even before, you could come and plant sugar snaps. Okay. Like on the outside. Okay. And that's what you'll have on the trellis through the winter. Ooh, nice. Do you ever hang like any lights or lanterns on your trellises? I should. I am such a like, I actually have lights. I was looking at this the other day and I see all these influencer posts where they're like, I just did this solar project. And I'm like, I can't do that. I gotta teach people how to grow salad. Well, I should do more aesthetic stuff. I was looking out last night and I can't see it. Oh, yeah. And so I thought, especially in the winter, if I have some kind of light, then I'll be able to see it. So mine was not influencer desired as much as I want to be able to see it. I love that. No, I definitely, when I was in Chicago, I would use my arch trellis as Christmas lights. I would string Christmas lights through it, which was really fun. I think that's pretty. I've even had clients during a frost, they run Christmas lights through their bed and put a frost cloth over it and they use the Christmas lights to warm up the bed through frost. So smart, okay. And it worked. Nice. To keep everything warm during frost, they use Christmas lights. Okay, pretty cool. That's ingenious. All right, so now we're ready to cover up and then you just kinda swishy swish swish. Not too deep. The other reason people don't have success with planting from seed is if they bury the seed too deep. So what do you think? Like quarter of an inch? We're doing good, yeah. So typically for any seed, you wanna go twice the width of the seed. So like for that bean, it was about this wide. So we went about that deep. Okay. But like if you've got a radish seed that's this big. Just barely. You're really, yep. Barely under the surface. So now we have some options. We could do some arugula. It's a little hot for radishes, but we can test it. They'll probably won't pop up until they can. We've also got carrots. Love carrots. Sun ching onions. Love it. Arugula. What is chive season? Is that spring or? Chives we can plant. We just need the plants. So as soon as we can find chive plants, we can add in between. I'd love that. If you love chives, for sure. And I've always wanted to do dill. Is that a summer? Dill is now. Dill will be soon. We just need seeds for it. All right. We've got beets. Oh, I like how these identify the season too. What great packets. Yes. That's our goal is to make it easier. Nice. All right. So here on the edge, we've got several places where we can plant stuff. So we've got this line here, which would be great for like carrots. Okay. Because we've got a drip line. So the seeds would get watered. You could also do greens here. So arugula would work well there as well. Are we trying to mimic or do one on one side, one on the other? We could do like, I like two beds matching. Okay. So we could do like something here. Okay. Something here. I think arugula here, maybe carrots back there. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. So arugula in the, cause you'll get the carrots later. The arugula you'll get every day. Perfect. Yeah. So arugula here. And then we have on this backside, we have all this space. So this could be beets, could be onions, could be more carrots, more lettuces. Then we have the radishes, which we could do here as well. And we can also put radishes in between these plants. We also, I know we're doing the pole beans, but you could also do bush beans. If you like beans a whole, whole lot. If you don't, then don't do it. I like them fine, but not a whole, whole lot. Okay. Yeah. So which one do you, you could do arugula, arugula, arugula, arugula. Okay. That would give you, you would have enough. And that's what I'm probably going to use the most. So let's do all arugula on the inside. Okay. And then how about on the outside? You sound a little bit less excited. So maybe like carrots out there. Yeah. Do you want beets at all? It's okay if you don't. A couple. I wouldn't eat it. I'd be the only one that eats them. That's the thing. I mean, I can give them away. So let's just do a few for the experience. Yep. Perfect. And then would you eat the radishes or no? Absolutely. Oh, you would. Okay. Oh yeah. So let's do arugula all in the center. Arugula. We'll do radishes along the back over there and then carrots back here. Okay. And then we'll just sneak in some beets. Perfect. Like if we don't, now we're supposed to get rain. So if that happens, that's why we're doing, that's why we're sweating it out right now. That would be great. Because I almost canceled. And then I looked back at the forecast and it's saying rain. So I was like, well, if it really does rain tomorrow, it's going to be perfect. You're from Mississippi. This isn't hot. Oh, I can handle this. I'm from here. Plants could. All right. That's fair. It's my strength versus the plants. I got this. Okay. So this is exciting. We've got, I've done the carrots, arugula, and the radishes. We can do a couple of beets in like the corners. Yep. I like that. See how we have this nice space here. So here on this side, I put carrots. So this one's good, but the top and bottom of each bed, I really want us to have some greens. Okay. So I was thinking we could do, you could either do more arugula, or we can try another lettuce and see if it's not too hot. It may be a little hot for it, but we can test it. This is a wax-seeded Simpson. Never heard of that. It's just a nice, kind of like a romaine. That's what it looks like. A little bit frillier. It's got like more texture points. Okay. So we're just going to come along here and go right on the edge like this. How far apart? And use the fact that the drip line is here. Okay. So very similar. You could use that spacing ruler if you want, or I'll show you my technique. Yeah, let me see yours. It's very technical. Okay. It's very advanced. Excellent. I think I can handle it. It's called, what should we call this? The finger, finger shimmy. So does it like this? So yeah. Okay. So I do a index finger and a thumb. Okay. And I just like rub them together and drop once every three or so inches. That's why you got your nails done. Look at that. There you go. It was worth it. Worth it. So we're going to do that. I'm going to take some. Okay. And then you do it. So both sides of the. Both sides, yep. And that's going to look so pretty growing in too. Great. All right. So what do you think so far? I'll put radish here. No radish here? Radish is just on the front. Okay. What do you think so far of the planting method? I think you know exactly what's going on and I'm just following along behind. That's what I think. Are you feeling like, wow, this is a lot of plants or this is what I expected? I would, I'm not feeling that way because I, well only because I've been following you for a while. Okay. So you were ready. And listening to you. You were prepared. Yes. Had I not been and not understood how you do that, yes, it would feel. You'd be like, what are you doing? This is chaotic. My mom came and she's like, that is gorgeous, but what? Did she say that? Yeah, because she follows the two feet, you know, 18 inch, whatever plant rule. So yeah, she did. She was. She's like, how is she going to fit all those plants in that space? So I get to teach her after you teach me. Different ways of doing things. You can give things your space, but then you just have to do a lot of work. I don't want to do that. Yeah. We're here for less work. That's correct. More fun. That's right. So that you can do your other work. So you can finish that work. So you can become a full-time gardener. You got it. That's the way it's supposed to work. You got it. Yeah. I think we're, we're done. We did it. Now what? How do you feel? Amazing. Now we just harvest. Yeah. So even the cilantro, you could start to cut on, the rosemary you can cut on, and that actually helps. I know you're going to feel like it's a little early. I know. It's so hard to. But the herbs, the cilantro, the sage, when you cut on them, it'll kind of sperm on. And then you're going to see, these are going to suffer a little bit and just cut back those bottom leaves. You're not hurting anything. As long as you leave two thirds of the plant every time, you're safe. Does that just happen because it's near the soil or? It's just because it got transplanted. But even, even a very healthy cabbage, that's on its way to finishing. I pull the leaves off every week. Okay. And that's why I was saying, you can put them into a salad or whatever. Yeah. Chop them up. We are almost to the finish line. We have the kitchen garden planted. I want to show you everything that's inside. So Alison and I just had the best time, even though it was quite hot. We managed to get a ton of plants and seeds into this kitchen garden space. We've got 64 square feet to work with. We put pole bean seeds along the trellises. We've got radish seeds, carrot seeds, beet seeds, arugula, and lettuce all in here. Plus some onion seeds. Then we've got tons of herbs. We've got thyme, rosemary, sage, and some cilantro too. And then we also added some flowers like gumfrina and see this little bumblebee. She's so happy that we brought this flower to her. We've also got some marigolds and yeah, it's a couple of more surprises that are going to be popping up for Alison as she goes through the season. So I have loved creating this space. I think it may be one of my favorites. Now the team is finishing up with the perennials along the edges. And this kitchen garden is almost complete. So thanks so much for watching the transformation. I hope this inspires you to take your own boring grass and turn it into a kitchen garden too. All right. It is time for the big reveal. It's been three weeks since we set up this garden and man, it is gorgeous. I love getting to talk through the whole garden space with Alison today. So come on in. Let me show you how everything's growing in and looking three weeks after installation. So the herbs are definitely settling in. We think we found some strange parasite growing on the thyme. So to be continued, but every other herb is looking amazing. The thyme's still looking amazing. It just may be supporting some other plant. We've got the gumfrina and the marigolds are totally taking off. This rosemary looks so delicious and our pole beans are starting to grow pretty soon. They're going to put a little tendril up and grow up the trellis. Our cabbages in the front are getting attacked by moths. So Alison has been picking off caterpillars like every five minutes, but she's doing a great job. Nothing a little bit of garlic barrier won't handle. And our lettuces are coming up from seed, radish from seed, arugula from seed, and the cilantro is doing great as well. So those are the first two beds. They look so beautiful. I love them. I love the colors. Next back here, we've got broccoli growing in place of the cabbage. And then pretty much everything else is the same. We're doing carrots where the radishes are. And then every bed has beets in the corners. So we talked today about being sure that the root crops are well spread out and also nicely buried. Alison's going to do a little bit of thinning and also a little bit of burying to make sure the beets, the carrots, the radishes are all deep enough. The broccoli is getting attacked by those caterpillars as well. But again, nothing a little bit of garlic barrier or insecticidal soap like some Castile soap won't solve. I love the way this garden is filling in. It looks amazing. But let me show you the perennial beds as well. I didn't realize at the time when we set on this project, but Alison had actually done some home renovations before we got here, maybe a year or two ago. And they actually brought in soil to this garden space to build it up. Her yard was at a complete slope and they built all this up. So when we started to dig in, it wasn't native soil underneath these plants. It was very hard soil that they'd use to level out the space. So it was quite a bit of work, took a couple of extra days, but they got all the plants in and most of them are making it even though it's been super dry and extremely hot. We've had day after day in the 90s, 100s and no rain for weeks. But Alison has kept everything alive. It's all looking beautiful. The hydrangeas, the roses. And my favorite is this purple Veronica. You can see how much the bees love it. I mean, they have just been crowding this plant all day, every day. Alison said she just sits here and watches the show. It's like a plant and wildlife show out here now that she's got all these plants and flowers. We've got roses and hibiscus. The red beckia is looking awesome as well. The cone flowers had a little bit of a hard time adjusting, but it's picking up the pace. She put this little solar powered sprinkler in it. I mean, look at it. It's just so fun. I can see all these bees coming over here to take a little drink. So it's really amazing to see how you can turn grass into a place that feeds this family, that entertains this family, but also that takes care of wildlife in a way that all that grass just wasn't doing previously. So I love this space. I hope you love the space too. The best part is Alison loves this space. This was made for her. She actually planted this garden with me on her birthday. And that's what it's all about. It's finding these little spots that we can create for ourselves, that connect us to nature, that remind us why we're here in the first place. And that also just brings a little bit of meaning, a little bit of heart, a little bit of peace to our everyday. So you can create your own garden like this where you live. And we would love to help you. The gardenery planting method is what we've used in all these spaces. And everything you see here is a system. It's a system that I've worked out after doing hundreds and hundreds of transformations like this one. And I would love to teach you how you can do this yourself. You can find out more how to learn about the gardenery planting method and how to set up your own kitchen garden right below this video. I cannot wait to see what you create. Tell me all the questions that you've got about this transformation right below this video and I'll see you next time.