Here Are the Gardening Rules You Can Ignore

Have you heard the rules, the ordinary gardening rules out there? I'm sure you have if you've been learning how to garden. YouTubing, heading to the garden center. You know, there's a lot of rules that everybody has for you on what you can and cannot do when it comes to gardening. Well, I, you know, I have to say, just by nature, I think I'm just made to be a rule breaker. And, and there are a bunch of rules in the garden that I decided to break, honestly, because I didn't read any of the books, I didn't watch any of the YouTubes, and so I just found my own way to garden and ended up breaking a ton of gardening rules and finding my own rules that I think work way, way better. So I recently led the spring garden startup workshop for thousands of you, and it was so fun. We went live, we had so many of you join us, and it was a fantastic time and it was such a good time and you all said you loved it so much that I thought we would put it here on the Grow youw Self podcast so that you can enjoy it and rewatch it. So in this section, I am breaking down the planting rules that exist, the ordinary planting rules that exist in the garden. And then I'm going to show you why you don't have to follow them and why the gardenary way is better, easier, and just, let's just say it, it's just more fun. And so I talk about a lot of ordinary and garden ordinary rules throughout the whole workshop, but we just want to give you a little piece of it. This is the part where we talk all about the plants. We're going to touch on fertilizer, we're going to touch on pest control, we're going to touch on plant spacing and a few other surprises. So I hope you enjoy this special treat where you get to be inside with me in a huge workshop. We had thousands of people there, and I want to give you the inside scoop. So enjoy this little lesson on the rules and that we can break when it comes to gardening and get way better results and have so much more fun. So let me show you how breaking the ordinary rules of gardening for planting makes sense and why the gardenary way works so much better. So the number one rule you're going to hear is you must obey the plant spacing rules. Have you heard this? Have you tried to follow the plant spacing rules? Oh, my goodness. They try to make you put those plants so far away from each other, don't they? It's like three feet away from each other. I'm like, my goodness, do y' all think I own a farm or what? So here's the deal. Spacing rules were not made for us. Number one, they're definitely not made for raised beds. Definitely not made for gardeners. Spacing rules are for farmers that are growing directly in the ground. Spacing rules also create problems, and I'm going to show you how, okay? Spacing rules create more problems than solutions. So every time you've got an empty space where you can see soil, that soil is going to dry out faster, that soil is going to lose its nutrients faster, and that soil is also going to be infected with pests and disease faster. So we don't want to have any open soil. Okay? My rule, what I'm going to teach you inside of Kitchen Garden Academy is, is six weeks after you planted your garden, you should not see any bare soil. So put that in the chat. No bare soil, okay? No bare soil. And I'm going to show you how nature teaches this, okay? Spacing rules not only cause more problems, they also decrease your production. Do you see this kitchen garden? This is a garden in the shade. You guys, all you guys who told me you've got a low sun garden, this is for you. Look at how much this garden is producing. Even in a shady place, plants together warm each other up. They increase the temperature of the garden. They protect each other. And when you mix and match all the plants in this space, all of their different biologies and energies work together to really, really make the garden take off and grow. So this is a 4 by 4 bed, or this is a garden that we planted. All right, Check this out. This is. And we used the gardenary method to plant this garden. Okay? So you want to look at this space? Are you ready for this? So if you plant the gardenary way, then this is what it is going to look like. Okay? So if we. We start here, and then in just a few months, this is what that space is going to look like. Are you ready for this? Yes, ma'. Am. That is what it looks like. So this is the space that uses the gardenary way of spacing rather than the ordinary rule. So tell me what you think about this. Are you ready? Are you ready for this? Because this is what it looks like. This is what it looks like when you plant it, and this is what it looks like when it grows. So y' all tell me, do y' all think we should obey the plant spacing rules anymore or. No, I'm Thinking, no. No way. Right? Awesome. So this is Stacy Messina. She's in California, and she's actually a gardenary consultant. And look at how she packs in the plants in her bed. She has got them all packed in. All right, now I want you to think about Zion national park and my views there. I'm going to show you a photo in a second. There's not any open space when you head to a national park, right? Those national parks, all you can see is plants and plants and plants. There's no open space in those areas. And these are in deserts, by the way. This is a desert. Doesn't really rain there. But the plants are planted so close together, they're really not far away from each other. All right, so what do y' all think? No, no, no. We do not need to space our plants like that. All right, the next ordinary rule that we are going to break is. Oh, I gotta tell you this. What was that thing? Have you ever heard that idea? There's like a quote about nature. It's like, nature fills a void, or nature abhors a void. I think that's it. Yes. Nature abhors avoid. That's right. So is that. Yeah, I think it's something like that. Anyway, basically, we see that happen in nature, right? We see how. How nature does not like to have a void. So now we're going to talk about the next ordinary rule, which is the companion planting chart. So have you heard these rules that you need to have a companion planting chart? Well, check out Zion National Park. I'm thinking. Do you all think that they have a companion planting chart here in Zion national park where you know all the plants have to. To be in a certain place? No, I'm thinking not. They did not follow a companion planting chart for this, so companion planting charts are not necessary. All you have to do is follow these steps and you will know how to put your plants together. You don't have to follow any specific rules. You just have to know a few things. All right, so the first thing you need to do is understand your temps. And that's what we've already started to do. In step one, you want to understand what temperatures you have in the certain season. And then the next thing you do, which we did in step two, is you understand your plant categories, right? Are they small, are they medium, and are they large? So you know your season, and then you know your plant categories. Small, medium, and large. And then. And then you want to know how to plant with confidence. So we're going to know our Season, when those plants grow together, like, what's happening? Are we in the cool season or the warm season? Then you categorize your plants, small, medium, and large. And then as soon as you've done that, then you get to just mix and match those just the way we did with that planting plan. So we get to match the small, medium, and large all together in one garden. And that's what's happening in my garden right here. So check out the magic here of Zion National Park. I mean, look at this place, right? You can see they've got really tall plants growing together. They've got medium sized plants and small plants. And do you see how all these plants are together in this one space? They all know which season they thrive in. Just naturally. They. And then they all find a way to find their space together in this big space. And that same kind of thing can happen in your garden, too. Now, we have a chart for you inside of Kitchen Garden Academy, but you can also do this on your own, and that is to come up with the main plant families in the kitchen garden. Once we come up with those plant families, we can categorize them by season and by size. And then we get to just mix and match, put them all together and in each and every space that we plant in. I love Lillian because of her quote here. She says creating a vegetable garden is very easy with kga. Everybody put that in the chat. Very easy. Very easy. Yes, ma'. Am. So no charts needed. We can just toss those charts. Those are not necessary because now we know how to plant them up. All right, what do you think? Are you ready to break the rules just like I did? Hopefully I have convinced you that these rules, if we're gardeners, they are not for us. Mostly they were made for farmers, they were made for old ways of gardening, and mostly they were created by the industry. So when we follow all those rules, then we end up spending more money because we have more problems. But if we do it the gardenary way, if we believe and trust in nature, gardening suddenly gets way more easier and so much more miraculous. So tell me in the chat, in the comments, tell me what you think about the gardenary rule, which is just one to replace four other rules that almost everybody thinks they have to obey. I love being a rule breaker, and I can't wait to see what your garden looks like when you start to break a few of those rules, too. Thanks for listening and watching the Grow youw Self podcast. I will see you next time. Thanks so much for listening to the Grow youw Self Podcast. You can keep listening anywhere. You love getting your podcast delivered on Apple podcasts on Spotify, iHeartRadio, you name it, we are there for you. And if you want to read the notes and get our free resources to help you grow more, you can go to gardenary.com podcast.