Welcome to the Slow Style Home Podcast, where you don't need to be a design genius to create your dream home, and you don't need a winning lottery ticket or to rely on cheap goods and trends, and you don't need to hurt the planet or your wallet to develop your signature style.
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Go to SlowStyleHome.com and click on the button that says free guide right at the top.Again, that's SlowStyleHome.com or you can find the link right here in the description of this episode.Let's go.
Today we're going to talk about how to make the best use of our space outside our homes, whether you live on acres in the country, have a lovely backyard, or just a balcony.
What all of these spaces have in common is that they allow you to access one of the most pleasurable aspects of your home or apartment, which is growing a few vegetables.
Now bear with me, if you're not a gardener, or like me, you mostly just grow flowers, my guest today is going to inspire you to pick up a hand spade and love your home in a whole new dimension.
Nicole Johnsey-Burke is the founder of Gardenary, where she offers all kinds of help to up and coming gardeners. and she's the author of the book Kitchen Garden Revival.
It's actually her second book and she's got a third one coming out soon but this one is pure gold all by itself.
First we talk about how our gardens connect us to our homes in deeply personal ways and then we get into some sage advice, get it, sage advice, about how to plan, build, care for, and reap the bounties of your kitchen garden.
whether it's just one pot or several raised beds.Here's Nicole.Nicole Johnsey-Burke, welcome to the Slow Style Home podcast.Thank you so much for having me.
I am loving your book because I am a passionate gardener, but still consider myself in the beginner sort of realm, even though I've been doing it for, I don't know, 30 years.So I'm really excited to talk about this.
And we don't often talk about our gardens on the show.We don't talk about them enough, and they are definitely part of our homes.I certainly live in my garden that way, and you do too.So I'm really happy to have you on to talk about this.
But before we get into the book, let's talk about what drew you into the garden.Did you grow up gardening?
I didn't, I did grow up doing yard work.I'm one of two girls, I'm the youngest and my dad definitely did not hold back on giving us lots of responsibilities in the yard.
So I actually told my parents I would have a yard full of gravel when I grew up because I was so tired of yard work.And ironically now I own a garden business.
Somewhere there in the middle, I think I figured out maybe why my parents loved being out in the yard on Saturday mornings.And I actually developed a food addiction in high school and in college and really saw food as the enemy.
I didn't even know that was the name of it, of what was going on.But really, I would wake up and then
Um, you know, just constantly battle in my head of what I should and shouldn't eat and then find myself by the end of the day, beating myself up over all the stuff I'd eaten.And so food was the enemy and my body was too.
And then I ended up living overseas after college and working in pretty much agrarian culture in China. Oh, wow.Yeah.So that was my first introduction to seasonal food and local food, but it was a slow healing.
It was a, like getting my body in sync with seasons and with fresh, real food.And slowly over those years that I was there, my, my like, Addiction with food and my relationship with my body began to heal.
And then fast forward a few years later, I was married, had a bunch of kids.We started a backyard garden in the summer one year.We were living in Nashville and renting. And it was honestly a complete flop.
We failed in pretty much every way, but, but it was just enough to, to give me this experience of what it's like to watch a seed grow into food right before your eyes.And I was hooked.
Yeah. Yeah.Nicole, thank you so much for sharing that story.I really appreciate conversations like this where people are unafraid to talk about the tough stuff that we all go through, even if it's different tough stuff.
I think it makes for a much more genuine conversation and also a conversation where we can really get to the deeper substance underneath why we live the way we do and the choices that we make in life.
And we're going to get into the nitty gritty about how to start or upgrade a kitchen garden, which is what your book talks about.But before we do, I want to shine a spotlight on the beginning of the book, because
like you just started to say about food addiction and your relationship with food, you lay out some other powerful life affirming reasons to start a kitchen garden.
Just mentioned one, tell us about the others, our sense of belonging to a place, our understanding of what home means.It's such a beautiful introduction.And honestly, reading that alone inspired me to want to make a kitchen garden.
Oh, that's awesome.Yeah, I love that the book by Simon Sinek called Start With Why.So I was like, Okay, start with why that's what we're gonna say do in the very beginning.
So yeah, I there are way more reasons to start a garden than there are to not I would say number one is just we're literally made to do it as human beings.We all
evolved and got to the place we're in right now through agrarian practices, through stepping outside every day, putting your feet in soil, touching soil, touching plants, smelling plants, hearing birds above your head.
And that was just an everyday experience for all of our ancestors for as many generations as you can go back.And it's not because they had a green thumb.It's not because they liked gardening.It's not because they were good with plants.
It's not because they had the special gift.It's because it is essential to human survival.
And the more I get into it and the more I watch non-gardeners become gardeners, the more convinced I am that it's, you know how we have the like 10,000 steps requirement where it's like, you need to walk this much.
Literally, it's you need to have some things growing on your patio, on your kitchen counter, in your backyard.We're so removed from seasons now.If you go to the grocery store,
there's going to be a watermelon there in January, and in July, right, there's going to be kiwi from New Zealand all year long.And we eat the same diet all year long.
And it's so neat to realize that nature actually is has been we've evolved and grown alongside nature.And it's so neat to see how plants the plants that grow and thrive in each season are actually exactly what we need physically to survive that.
So for instance, wait a minute, so you're saying that what the nutrients of a plant that is grown in the fall, kale, for example, or Swiss chard, those are the nutrients our bodies need also at that time of year?
Yes, isn't that amazing?The squashes and the The beets and the carrots and the kale, those are packed with antioxidants.They're packed with vitamin C and vitamin A and vitamin B.
All the things we need as the sun starts to be less obvious and less often during the day as cold and flu is forming in the air.All those think about a root stores, all it's the powerhouse of the plant, right?It stores all the food.
So when you eat a root crop, which comes to harvest in the fall or in the early spring in the cold and flu seasons. You're literally giving yourself a flu shot.Like you're giving yourself.
It's like eating one of those or drinking one of those, you know, emergency.I always have one of those.
It's like that in a carrot.
but your body can take it because it comes with food, right?And so think about in the summer, you're sweating a lot, you're very hot, your body needs hydration.What thrives in summer?
Watermelon, cucumber, tomatoes, all these really full of water hydrating foods, they thrive in the summer and that's when they're ripe.
And it makes so much sense.It seems so obvious.And I'm wondering if other people are listening to me going, yeah, Zandra, duh.But I don't know.I've never heard anybody say it the way you just said it.
I think of course we need our vegetables and love, luckily I love vegetables, but, and of course I want to eat seasonally, but I was always because I think they taste better in the season they're meant to grow in.
Not because it had a particular nutritional value for that time of year.That is so cool.
Think about it too.It's almost like evolutionary in the sense that it tastes better when it's good for us.So it's literally nature and science working together for our survival.That's part of the beauty of this whole system is it's all
if we will live with the system and enjoy it as it is, it's like all designed in our favor, right?It tastes good when it is good, when we need it.So that's one thing for me, I know the garden is so calming.It is very centering.
There's so much science now with that, like the minute you are around plants, Japanese call it forest bathing, but the Yeah, being surrounded by plants like science shows our cortisol level drops, our dopamine rises.
Like literally I will be out in the garden just tending or cutting a couple of things and I can feel my heart beat slow down.Everyone's talking these days about all the hidden stresses and hidden diseases of our culture right now.
As we're all online, we're all on devices, we're all on all the time. It is a little easy moment.You could literally have just a little pot of basil that you take care of every day, or just a little rolling planter that you have on your patio.
And just to go out, have a moment with your plants every day, it really is.It's such a huge stress relief.
And talk about you moving a lot, because I also want to make sure we touch on another aspect and bring up that has to do with a feeling of belonging and what home means?
Yes, I've moved a ton, a ton.I've lived, I think I've lived in eight or nine states and I lived in two countries after college and I always feel like an outsider.I always feel like I don't belong, especially culturally, socially.
I didn't feel like I had home, that I had a place that was mine, that I belonged to.And the first time, so we gardened in Nashville, then we moved to Houston, we gardened there, then we moved to Chicago and gardened there.
So three very different cultures, very different climates, very different people in all three places.And in each place, I truly felt at home.
And it wasn't because I fit in it wasn't because I had a ton of friends it was because I fully embraced the seasons and the times and the plants and. the garden in each of those places.I think we all long for that.
We all long for that feeling of belonging.And I think when you truly start to know the seasons of your town or city and not just know them in the terms of, oh, the leaves are changing, but know them in terms of, oh, the arugula is ready.Yeah.
Oh, it's time to put the beets in.Oh, it's time to pull the sweet potatoes.That's a belonging in a sense of time and space that I,
Is such a gift and especially for all of us as we can feel like we don't belong it's it's a gift all of us could give ourselves.
It's so beautiful what i love about this is that it's giving us a very tangible palpable. reason to love our homes, but also an understanding of what our homes can give back to us.And I say that on the show all the time.
What is your home doing for you?What is it giving back to you?And when we consider our outdoor space, however big or small it is, to be part of our homes, this is a very literal example of what our home is giving to us, this bounty.
So I really appreciated that part of the book. And I'm really loving this conversation.I want to make sure we get into some of the more practical how-to aspects of the book, because I want to say to everybody, this is very, it's very
step by step, Nicole really holds our hands through this.And I think because of that, I don't know, it gave me some confidence that I think that is sometimes really elusive when you're first starting.
And I want to ask you, what would you say to someone who has never gardened in their lives,
Yeah.So, uh, I have this continuum that I teach all my students and it basically, if you want to imagine with me a diagonal line and this line represents most of the things we associate with plant care.So sunlight, water, time, space, and tending.
Think about all those things.They're all in this line.So down at the bottom, the needs are very small, just a little bit of time, a little bit of space, a little bit of sun, a little bit of care, a little bit of everything.
And then at the top, you're going to have needs the most space, the most tending, the most water, the most sunlight.
So the amazing thing I learned over the years from teaching myself to garden and then watching all my clients start to learn to garden too, right in front of me, I realized there are plants at every point on this continuum.
So there are plants that are the needy plants, right?They need lots of space, lots of sun, lots of time and lots of attention.And then there's plants that need hardly anything.They literally will grow pretty much anywhere.
Don't need you to do anything for them.And so what I like to say is there is a plant for everyone.And we have a saying here at Garden Area, which is grow with your plants.
A lot of people, the mistake they make, and I don't know if you've done this, I did this. I went straight to Lowe's or Home Depot and bought some tomato plants, right?
And then I bought some squash and some watermelons because those were the most exciting things to grow, right?They're beautiful, they're colorful, they're juicy and delicious and sweet, and those are at the top.
So this is where my second book came from.It's called Leaves, Roots and Fruit.As you look at this line, at the bottom are leaves, in the middle are root crops and at the top are fruit.
Plants grow lots of leaves first, then they start to store all the nutrients in their roots Then they produce flowers, fruit, and seeds as their reproductive cycle for the next set of plants for next year.Right.
And in the first 30 to 45 days of a plant's growth are tons of leaves.So that's where we have all the plants that we would grow to eat their leaves, lettuces, cabbages, kale, Swiss chard, chives.
You have all the herbs in there, all the greens in there. That's 30 to 45 days, four hours of sunlight, less than a square foot of space.The only thing you got to do for it is cut it.Then you've got your root crops.
These start to come in around 60, 75 days. This is when the plant's starting to get really established.It's putting the food into its roots.And these need a little bit more sun, about six hours of sun a day.
They need more space, more like almost a half square foot, a full square foot.
for it to grow enough to harvest and but not as much tending you basically plant them tend a little bit and then harvest and then next we have our fruit and that's going to come in about 70 to 100 days after planting they need a lot more space over one square foot each they need watering at least one to two inches a week
they need a ton of sun, eight plus hours of sunlight, and they're going to need your time, you need to trellis them, you need to prune them, you need to give them extra food, you need to keep the pests off the fruit.And so for your listeners,
The choice is yours.If you want to jump in at the fruit level, go for it.But do not call us and tell us you don't have a green thumb, because the problem is not that you don't have a green thumb.You just picked the neediest plant.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, you're now ready to commit to a couple of raised beds or garden boxes, which by the way, is where I'm at.I have been a flower gardener for, like I said, a long time, 30 years, but not so much a food gardener.
I now just have my two raised beds.Started with one a couple of years ago, now I have two. Next step, try to distill if you can something from each chapter that one or two essential things we need to consider citing your garden.Let's start with that.
Yeah, so siting your garden, basically you want this to be as easy to get to as possible.So the whole point of a kitchen garden is you're using it as often as you're using your kitchen.So you don't want this to be hidden behind the garage.
You don't want it to be tucked far away.You want this to be something that's in your everyday traffic.You want to figure out also how far away your water source is.The next thing and the most important is actually sunlight.
And so you do want to pick the sunniest part of your yard.And then the last aspect that I love to consider is the aesthetics.A lot of people think that a vegetable garden has to be just this random, awkward box sitting out in the yard all by itself.
And so that's the first part of site.Take into consideration water, accessibility, sunlight, and then also aesthetics, how it's going to fit with your overall home.
Okay, let's just jump a little bit deeper into the aesthetic part because this is a podcast about style.I was under the impression, I think, that because my vegetable patch is about food, therefore it's utilitarian.
Let's talk about the structures themselves.You recommend always raised beds.I think that you talk about because you can really control the soil and make sure it's the best soil available.
I like them because then my rabbits that I have everywhere in the yard don't eat anything.I also like it being up high enough that when I'm cutting my herbs, I'm not bending over.So I think there's a lot of great reasons to do raised beds.
But you really break down for us all of the different materials, not just for the beds, but also for what's going on the ground underneath them, and the pros and cons of each.
So if you could just give us a little taste of that, what can we expect in terms of cost to get started, but then also quality, how well are things going to last?
Yeah.So we use four structures in our designs, raised beds, trellises, borders, and pathways.So accessibility is the name of the game for me when it comes to the garden.
I want everyone to go to the garden every day and the pathways and borders are a big part of that.We have a little calculation we use where And I think it's in my book, Inside the Frame.
So we rate every material based on durability and sustainability and beauty.And then we also rate it on affordability.I would say 7 out of 10, maybe 6 out of 10 of our clients are choosing cedar.And then the rest probably
three out of 10, two or three out of 10 would choose steel.And then maybe one out of 10 would choose stone.So stone is I would reserve that for your forever home.Okay, it's on my bucket list.I have a stone garden, don't have one yet.
But stone will last the longest, obviously, and is the most expensive.Steel has a very thin footprint.It's very modern.If you are looking for a way to maximize your growing space with minimal material, we're talking three quarters
of an inch of steel is all it takes.Everyone's worried about it heating up, but I use it in the hottest places in the country and we have no problems.It does heat up, but you just plant the heat-tolerant plants around the edge.
And then cedar is the most affordable.It's getting more and more expensive since COVID, but it is the most affordable and it will also be the first to go.So it'll buy last. five to ten years if you treat it well.And it's a great starter material.
And it's also beautiful.You can stain it, you can paint it, you can let it patina on its own.Like you said, there's so many benefits to raised beds.You can totally garden directly in the ground.It is so much harder.
It's going to take years to get your soil to the right place.
Nicole, two big things that I've taken from your book are planting seasonally and companion planting.And just to give you a personal example, as I said, I have these two raised cedar boxes that my husband made right outside of our kitchen.
I was going to be more adventurous this year, so I planted a bunch of stuff.And it didn't even occur to me to plant throughout the year.So I planted Swiss chard, for example, in the spring.It died. for negligence on my part.
We had a really hot, dry summer and I was away for a little bit, so it didn't get watered.It died.And then I thought, why did I even do this now?I don't even want to eat it until the fall.All my fall recipes have Swiss chard in them.
So I want you to talk about that.And then second of all, this idea of companion planting.I was putting all of the basil together and then all of the rosemary together and all of the peppers together.
And we talked about how aesthetically it can be more pleasing when you mix it up.But there's probably some good plant reasons for that, too.
Yes.If you look at basically our current food system, that's why everyone's freaked out about the pesticides and the herbicides and all that.The reason why they have to do all that is because of monocropping.
So when you set up a garden or a farm or anything where it's just all one plant, Basically, you're to the past, you're like, buffet time, right?
Yeah, also can really pull too much from the soil, because it's just all the same plant, pulling the same nutrients all along that entire garden space.I didn't want to just grow one thing I wanted to try all the things right.
And so I ended up these gardens for full of all these plants.And then clients, same thing.I was like, check off all the plants you want to grow this season.And they would check everything.
I was like, Oh, and so yeah, I developed this planting system and it actually aligns really well with leaves, roots and fruit because leaves are typically small plants, root crops, and a couple of other leafy plants are what I call medium sized plants.
And then your fruiting plants are generally your large plants. And so what we do in a garden is we start with the large.So we'll either grow the large right down the middle of the garden if it's an equal access garden from all sides.
And if it's a border garden where you just access it from three sides, we'll grow the large plants along the back side.And then we taper down.We start with large in the middle and then medium and then small on the outside.
And so what ends up happening in that situation, there's so many benefits.First of all, you get loads of variety.
If you have this bed that's got tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers and basil and arugula and some oregano and some rosemary and some chives, there's always something to go out there and pick.
And so one keeps you much more interested to all these plants work well together.So you protect your tomatoes from drying out because you've got carrots growing right alongside that are keeping the water there near the roots.
They're not exposing the soil to the sunlight.They're covering the soil with leaves, right?You end up having less watering needs.You don't need to weed.Everybody's always talking about weeding.I'm like, what weeds?
Instead of weeds, you've got plants growing.Then you also get pest protection because in a monocropping situation where all the plants are the same, that pest, like we said, just goes one to the next, but I call these interrupters.
So the pest is say eating on a bean plant, then they go to the next plant and it's basil.And ooh, they hate the smell of that basil.They may destroy that bean plant, but they're done after that.There's not a spot to go to next.
And then finally, it's gorgeous, I think.So a lot of people see my gardens and they can't figure out what it is about it that they like.And it could be the structures, right?It could be the trellises and the beds.
But I'm like, actually, it's the plants.When you see all this plant mass growing in tandem,
these leaves flowing over the sides of the bed, these root crops coming through the middle, and then this beautiful fruit flowering in the very center of the bed on a very tall structure.It actually reminds you of nature.
That's how I really learned it is going on hikes in national parks and seeing plants growing in the wild, that's how plants grow.
You've got big tall plants, you've got bushy plants in the middle, and then you've got these kind of ground cover type plants.So we're really just imitating nature in a raised bed.
Okay, great.And then seasonality.So did I make a mistake by planting my Swiss chard in the spring or, and should I have planted it in the summer instead for a fall harvest?
You did great.You did great because Swiss chard loves cool weather.So yes, it loves fall, but it does also love spring.There are different leaves, roots and fruit that like each season.
So in the cool season, a leaves, roots and fruit combo would be like a lettuce. for your leaves or cilantro or dill, and then beets or carrots.And then for your fruit, it would be like sugar, peach, sugar, snap peas, or snow peas.Okay.
So in one bed, you could have lettuce along the outside beets coming down the middle and then peas going on the trellis.Okay.In a warm season, you would replace those things and you could have
basil for your leaf, you could have potatoes for your root, and then you'd have cucumbers for your fruit.And then in the hot season, you can have something like a Malabar spinach or a New Zealand spinach for your green, or even sweet potato greens.
You can have sweet potatoes or ginger for your roots, and then you'd have something like okra or eggplant for your fruit. So every plant has in its DNA a temperature in the soil and the air that it loves and thrives in.
But we do is basically we switch the garden out every quarter.
So it's the same garden bed.You're not saying I need a garden bed for cool, a garden bed for cold, a garden bed for warm.And you're saying one bed can.
And when you're digging the plant and OK, so now you were past the cold season and we're into the cool season. What do I do with the sort of dying dead plants from the cold season?Do I just leave them there?Do I dig them up and replace them?
You're going to pull them up.It's either, is this in its prime season?If it's not in its prime season, let's pull it.And then, and then the other question, is there something, is there not something I have right now that I would prefer over it?
And if there is, then I take it out.
I want to let everyone know, in case you're starting to feel a little bit overwhelmed with all of this information, that this book will calm you down.
Nicole right now is just picking out some examples for us to illustrate what it's going to look like and feel like.But how to do it is really in the book.
And I mean it when I say you really do a great job of holding our hands and taking us through every step. And she also has in the book is listed a website for a free garden journal, her website for a free garden journal.
But you have some really great courses.And I just looked and right now you're having a big sale.So Nicole, tell us a little bit about Gardenary.
Yes.So we, our mission is to make gardening ordinary.That's where the word gardenary came from.Gardening is ordinary and we are on a mission to help gardening, um, feel simple.
And so we have a whole system, like our leaves, roots, and fruit system that we bring you through. to just go from zero to garden hero, starting with leaves, starting with the simplest things, and then learning to grow all the things.
We also train garden coaches around the country or across the world.We train them and teach them to have their own businesses just like mine.And then we have all the supplies.So we have seeds that cover all the
plants we've talked about today, and they have gardenery instructions on the back.So we teach exactly how to plant the way that we do.
And then we have raised beds, we have trellises, we have all the supplies that you'd need inside the gardenery shop.We say like the three keys for success is setting up your garden the right way, getting the timing right in terms of the plants.
The third one is habit and it's finding five minutes for the garden every day.And that's actually my next book is coming out January 7th. And it's called The 5-Minute Gardener.
And it's all about the idea of getting into the habit of just stepping out into the garden for five minutes a day.And yeah, so they can find out all about it at gardenary.com.
And also on our Instagram is where I share loads of daily tips and that's gardenaryco, G-A-R-D-E-N-A-R-Y-C-O.
And we will have both of those links on the show notes page of this website.So you can find them easily here.Nicole, this has been really inspirational.
I have to say, I was working on my questions for today and I closed the book and I looked at my husband.I said, okay, that's it.We're doing it.We're going all in.I'm so ready for this.So thank you so much for your time today.
I loved it.I appreciate all that you do.And I love the connection with home.Our mission and dream is that every kitchen has a kitchen garden.So I hope our listeners will go for it too.
Thank you.Wonderful.Okay.I'm going to stop recording. Thanks so much for listening.I know your time is valuable and I really do appreciate you spending it with me.
And please, please, please take a minute to leave a review for Slow Style Home wherever you get your podcasts.It honestly does help keep this show on the air and your feedback is highly valuable to me.
Have a great day and I'll be back in your earbuds soon.Bye for now.
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