It's Okay to Be Weird When It Comes to Gardening

When I first started gardening back in 2011, the internet was around, sure, but I had four small and very loud children and not much time for reading articles on how to do things properly in my garden. I spent most of my time chasing toddlers around the house and changing diapers. So I learned how to garden as I went, oftentimes trying to replicate how I saw plants growing in the wild.

This approach led to a lot of results that were not so great—and also some incredible "discoveries". I wasn't trying to follow all the directions. I didn't even know all the "rules" I was breaking. I was just having fun and figuring out what worked and what didn't.

The one rule I always kept was to have fun in the garden, and that's the only rule I suggest you try to follow. The more fun you have gardening, the more likely you are to keep gardening. Plus, you won't feel so bad when something doesn't work out. If the whole point of gardening is just to have fun, then it won't matter so much when squirrels run off with all your cherry tomatoes or you get an unexpected frost.

Here are some weird things you can start trying out in your garden to make it more fun and maybe even work better than the "right way" to do things.  

Plant 8 Tomato Plants on 1 Arch Trellis

If you've seen the cover of my first book, Kitchen Garden Revival, then you've seen how I grow an explosion of tomatoes on the trellises in my garden.

Every warm season, I plant 8 tomato plants on each and every one of my arch garden trellises. Each base of the arch trellis will support 4 plants, two on either side of the base, spaced about 12 to 15 inches apart. This works because they vine up the trellis as they grow, until they eventually meet in the middle.

The results, I can assure you, are not weird at all. They're actually pretty spectacular. About 100 days after you plant your tomatoes, you'll be standing underneath an incredible vine-covered arch that's bursting with fruit for you to pick.

If you want to try this out in your own vegetable garden, make sure you're growing indeterminate tomatoes. Indeterminate means vining, and this type of plant continues to grow and produce fruit throughout the season.

Growing this way is not only beautiful and productive, it's actually easier than trying to grow in a tomato cage—always a disaster, in my experience. The plants grow prolifically, but you can't get to them easily to prune the vines, which aren't so much supported as just bunched inside the bars. Your cage might even topple over because of all the weight of the tomato growth, breaking the stems inside that are just trying to grow.

Your tomatoes don't need to be in prison, okay? Tomatoes should be free, not caged. Learn the steps to grow your tomatoes on an arch trellis like I do.

Dump the Entire Packet of Seeds into a Raised Bed

I take packets for things like lettuce and arugula and sprinkle every single seed over one raised bed. This is how you get tons and tons of leaves from your space—enough to replace store-bought salad. I'm not a homesteader or anything, so I don't try to replace all my groceries with homegrown harvests, but I do replace my lettuce greens at least 6 months out of the year. I do that by simply taking a package of spring mix seeds and dumping it out over my 4ft x 4ft raised bed. Then, I come out and harvest every single day while it's growing.

If the idea of dumping out seeds makes you nervous, you can ensure they're spread out a little better by mixing your lettuce or arugula seeds with some coarse sand. Rub your hands together to spread the mix as you move down the bed. The sand will show up against your soil, so you'll be able to see where you've already sown seeds. The sand also helps disperse the seeds more evenly.

So this one might sound weird, but you'll end up with a ton of leaves from just one seed packet. Don't plant just a dozen or so seeds in a raised bed. Plant the whole darn thing and see what happens!

Grow a Flower Fence Around My Kitchen Garden

People always ask me: "What about pests?" "Don't squirrels steal all your tomatoes?" "Don't deer ruin your crops?"

One of the best ways I've come across to keep pests out of my space is with some type of physical barrier. You can create a deer fence or add a squirrel cage around your beds, but my favorite type of barrier is a living fence, or a plant barrier. Basically, you create a 2- to 3-foot-wide in-ground bed around your entire vegetable garden. Fill it with native plants, grasses, and flowers. The idea is to block the view of your edible garden from the pests you're trying to keep out (squirrels, deer, rabbits, whatever).

An easy first step is to just plant some tall grasses or flowers between your lawn and your garden. That's not much of a financial or space commitment. Easy flowers include zinnias and sunflowers. You could even add herbs.

Read more about keeping animals out of your garden space.

Cram Plants into a Fraction of the Space Recommended

You know those instructions on the back of your seed packages that tell you how far apart you should plant something? Those instructions are meant for farmers, not home gardeners. They're also written with the assumption that you're just growing that one kind of plant. Twelve inches is how far apart each tomato plant should be; that doesn't mean you can't come in and plant a lot of smaller things in between those two tomato plants. I'm never growing just one type of plant all by itself. I grow all kinds of different plants together in the same space. You follow me?

What I started doing way back when is just packing in as many plants as possible in between larger plants. That often means giving plants about 1/2 of the recommended space and mixing and matching them to create a sort of patchwork quilt of plants.

Growing lots of different types of plants all close together has a number of benefits, including preventing the soil from drying out and protecting the nutrients in that soil.

Just don't tell my kids I said there were hidden benefits to breaking the rules, okay?

Use a Wedding Veil to Keep Out Caterpillars

The first time I realized that caterpillars like leafy greens was when I discovered a cabbage looper infestation in my garden. It was pretty gross, but it taught me the value of protecting your lettuce so that pests never have access to them in the first place. Sure, you can spray some chemicals, but it's much easier to just keep your plants pest-free from the day of planting them.

The next time I was ready to sow some lettuce seeds, I headed to Joanne's Fabrics and bought myself a bolt of tulle, the thin, gauzy fabric they use to make veils. I brought the tulle home and covered my entire garden the minute after I planted all my lettuce seeds. And let me tell you, the resulting leaves were the purest, cleanest lettuce leaves ever. I had zero pest issues. And that's because the moths that lay all those annoying little pests like cabbage worms and cabbage loopers never had access to my garden; they had to find somewhere else to raise their spawn.

You can buy agricultural mesh and row covers, but tulle is a pretty inexpensive alternative if you're looking for a way to protect your salad garden from pests but still let in light, air, and rain. Wedding veils in the garden for the win!

Hide Potatoes in the Flower Beds

If you've ever grown potatoes, you know they can be prone to pests like beetles. The plants also take up a lot of room because they grow big and bushy aboveground. That's why I don't like growing potatoes in my raised garden beds. I'd rather save that precious real estate for plants that are pickier about their soil and plants that need regular tending. Potatoes are pretty easy: you just bury them and then dig them up. You don't have to fuss over them.

I started growing potatoes in the pollinator garden out in front of my kitchen garden. The potato plants look beautiful next to all those flowers, and when it's time to dig the potatoes up, I don't have to worry about leaving ugly open spots in my garden. The flowers conceal your un-buried treasures. I also don't have to worry about disturbing the delicate roots of the other plants growing in my raised beds.

If you want to grow potatoes, I highly recommend hiding them inside your flower beds. Here are the steps to plant your potatoes.

Grow Pounds of Beans on the Edge of My Raised Beds

There are two different types of beans, pole and bush, and this only works for bush varieties. But basically, I fill my raised garden beds with plants, and then I sow bean seeds about 4 inches apart around the entire outer edge of the bed. Bush beans are floppier plants, so they can just flop right over the edge of the bed. Their root systems are also pretty small, so they're happy to grow right next to the side of the bed.

This is how you can grow pounds and pounds of beans without taking up much garden space at all. Learn more about growing bush beans.

Plant Flowers Just for the Bad Bugs

The idea here is to plant flowers that actually attract bad bugs. Why would you want to do that? Because those bad bugs are going to find their way to your garden no matter what. But you can use the flowers as decoys so the pests never find their way to the plants you want to protect. The proper gardening term for this is using trap crops.

Two plants that get the attention of the bad bugs are nasturtiums and calendula. I love planting loads of these flowers in my garden because they collect all the pests on their stems and leaves. Zinnias are another great trap crop for beetles and stink bugs.

It might seem weird to plant flowers knowing full well they'll attract pests, but it works. The pests will go to those flowers and leave the rest of your garden alone. Now, does this work 100 percent of the time? Nope, but it is effective overall.

Keep Tomato Suckers

I never prune tomato suckers. If you're not familiar with tomato suckers, they're a new shoot on vining plants that emerges between the main stem and a branch. Conventional wisdom says to pinch off the suckers because they're sucking energy from the plant. I did that for years and ended up with only a few tomatoes on each plant. Most of those fruits were eaten by squirrels and birds, so I ended up disappointed most seasons.

I decided one year to stop following the advice. Instead of pruning the suckers, I pruned all those side stems that were just producing leaves. I left all the suckers on my plants. And guess what? I got a ton of fruit. Why? Because the suckers actually produce fruit. Essentially, pruning suckers leads to bigger tomatoes but far fewer of them. Keeping the suckers means you'll get more tomatoes, they just might be smaller. More is more, if you ask me. I like increasing my chances of winning. I know the squirrels are going to steal some fruits, so the more tomatoes I grow, the more I get to keep.

If you grow vining tomatoes on a tall trellis, there's plenty of room to support all that sucker growth, and you'll get loads of tomatoes.

Plant Way Before My Neighbors Think You Can Start Gardening in the Spring

My neighbors look at me like I'm crazy when I start sowing seeds in between freezes, but I learned through trial and error that you can actually garden for much longer throughout the year than you might think. You definitely don't have to wait until your last frost date to start gardening in the spring, and you don't have to close your garden down for winter just because the first frost is headed your way. There are many plants that are perfectly happy to grow in cold weather.

I made this Planting Calendar to show you all the possibilities. All you have to do is plug in your frost dates, and the calendar will show you when you, too, can head outside and plant your garden. Just ignore the weird looks you might get from your neighbors for now. They'll wish they'd had this calendar when they see you harvesting before they've even sown their first seed!

Have More Fun in Your Garden This Season

Gardenary is the place to come to learn more about gardening, even the weird things some of us do that—I assure you—actually work!

Even if you don't follow all my weird gardening ways, I hope you feel liberated from following all the rules and conventional wisdom out there. There might be some rules that are worth keeping, but overall, just do what works for you. Think of your garden as a place you can stretch the limits and play around. Be as weird as you want.